Taurus will jokingly send the first image he can find of a minotaur thug along with the plate number he spotted, then head back to the museum and that back door that was futzed with.

bnc jumps into the FlySpy drone to try and retrace the dwarf's moves.

Taurus arrived at the back door of the gallery and found the door locked. The lock looked and functioned like any ordinary door lock should.

>>Hey bnc, did the hacker kid succeed at opening the door?

Anna carefully searchers the kid with the skill of an experienced thief, recalling how she was physically searched for items of value in the past.

James joins Anna and Nova.

"If you'd kindly hand me over the deck, please. There's something I need to see"
Once Nova hands him the deck, James will directly connect to it, reboot it in offline mode and sift through the protocols.



@Taurus "He did succeed, but not in opening the door. He manipulated it. Wait, I'll see to it. Gimme a sec."

>>If it was open, it isn't now. If those others at the exhibit were not using it, then someone did. I think I could use some back-up here.

Anna had to look twice - on her first sweep there was no sign of any additional electronics on the boy's person. Only after a thorough inspection she noticed the stealth tag in his hair. A closer look revealed that it had been modified, using the impressive computing capacity of the small tracking device to turn it into a hard to detect commlink.

bnc/James took possession of the modified deck. Despite the mods, it wasn't hard to get into the deck and find the last message. The boy had been clever enough to delete other history before he entered the gallery host (a precaution that could prevent him being identified through a counter hack), but there were still three messages that he had sent after the hack.
The first read: <<Lock is prepared. I'm doing the cameras next.>>
The second read: <<Changed my mind. To risky now.>>
The third she had already seen.

All messages had been sent to an anonymous contact in his list. The commlink number looked like that of a cheap burner link.

Taking a deeper look at the action on the lock revealed, that the boy had rewritten the boot sector, implementing a backdoor to open the lock. As far as she could make out, the maglock would now open if the reset key was pressed three times in a row at the card reader outside.

bnc passes her findings on to the team, then focuses on trailing the dwarf again.

Anna takes the tiny device and gives it to James. "Very clever Mr...?" she says asking for the boy's name. Haven't seen an art heist for a while, what is it that you are trying to steal?" she asks, genuinely curious and uncertain how to be intimidating if she wanted to be. While doing so she carefully assense him to see how truthful he is.

"This lad has impressive capabilities. A bit of training and some gear ... we just found a gem here!

Taurus, what are you up to?"

When done with the deck, James takes the link and connects to it - by connector or data tap, whatever is needed. She checks whether he sent any warning messages from here, and generally what his latest actions were.

The drone had picked up the trail of the dwarf as she made her way to a bus station. She still looked unhappy but apparently was fascinated by a nearby advertising display. The bus she was waiting for, would take her to the main trainstation.

Meanwhile, checking the stealt tag/commlink, bnc found another two messages that had been sent only a few seconds ago. The rest had been deleted as before, so the boy had been online, running silent with the tag.
<<They have me. I think they are runners. Help me.>>
The last one read:
<<Oh drek, they are searching me. Could be my last message.
Cute girl with perky nose, super cybered lady and an anthro drone with a decker/rigger behind it. Watch out.>>

The boy said: "I'm not a thief. And I don't know what you are talking about."

"Look, boy, we already know you hacked that door in the gallery, alright? How do you think we found you, huh? Drop your act and tell us what is going on and who you are working for!"

Finally, the boy gave up the act:
"Alright, alright. I was hired to allow some people access to the gallery whenever they want. My brother's sister in law's girlfriend asked me to help her and her friends out. She's a student at the university here. Magic stuff. I think they were interested in that creepy leather statue. That's all, I swear. They sent me photos from inside, so I could find the right door.
Her name is Elizabeth, Elizabeth Czezinsky."

"See, that wasn't so hard, was it? Look, we are not the bad guys here, okay? Our hacker says you have talent. Not a whole lot of experience and crap gear, but talent. Don't waste it with creeps like those. They are VERY bad news. The last bunch was into black magic, sacrificing school girls for power. Yeah, that sort. You better stay far away from them. And your friends, too."

<< Okay, we probably need to watch that entrance, to see when they make their move. Also, since none of his warnings got out, maybe we can let them believe, everything is alright still? We should probably keep the boy under surveillance until things are done, though. >>

>> We got enough or should I play the magic interrogation card?
"Who is her friend?" Anna asks.

"Can't imagine Lizzy doing something like that. I don't know her friends, but she's a really correct person."
The boy replied. His English came easier now, that he spoke for longer.
"Come on, let me go. This is kidnapping."

bnc saw that the dwarf was still staring at the display. The bus had come and gone and she was still standing there.

"You know what, I do believe you. But, somewhere in the line, most likely, are people like that. Maybe it is not the girlfriend, maybe not her magic friend. Maybe it is people who are using her. How about you get us to talk to her, so we can learn more about it?"

"So I guess we are watching a door."

Taurus will try and find a good location where he can watch the door. (OOC: Someone that can ACTUALLY find a good location should come and move him to a better place.)

Drek! Damn boy!, bnc thinks. Half a split-second later, her voice follows: @team "Drek! Damn boy set us off. Prepare for an ambush. Info follows."

bnc orders another driverless cab to a destination roughly 800 meters from them, grabs the stealth tag/commlink, halts the car at the next crossing, then orders James to run towards the meeting point. While he runs, she sends a message from the boys 'link to his contact.
<<They didn't find it yet but they're bringing me somewhere. They want to interrogate me. Help me. Need to be careful.>>

Once the time-critical stuff is done, she says in the team channel: "We're setting up an ambush. I'll steer the cab with the stealth tag someplace where I wanna make them believe we're interrogating the boy. If they want to stop us from gaining info from him, they'll probably try and ambush us. We turn the tables in our favor and try to ambush them. Roger?"

bnc records any answer and converts it to text in a log to read a few seconds later, in order to have her mind free to turn her attention on the dwarf. She tries to find an active commlink the dwarf might be using. She'll also check on the display itself, while instructing her agent to create a list of shady motels where we can set up an ambush. She then reads her teammates' answers, mind spinning.

>> Love it when you are concerned. Neat idea, let's implement it. Let's hope it is not necessary as we get to meet his friend.

Before checking the log, bnc traces the burner link's connection, hoping it would still be in use.

The boy finally replied: "Or maybe you are full of drek yourself. You already have all my gear - what else do you want? I told you her name. You have my link, so call her yourself. I just opened a door. Also I want the deck back."
The boy was sullen now. Apparently he had realized that he likely had just lost equipment worth over 50k€

Hacking the burner was no problem for bnc, though something was funny about the GPS location. It took her a second to realize that her flying drone already was at that position - observing the dwarven mage standig at the bus stop.

"I don't mind getting you the deck back, but only once we handled the threat to the Gallery. Since both of us seek a nonviolent resolution, I think it is a good deal. Help us meet the people that hired you, and when we get them to back off you get the deck back. Otherwise, it'll fetch a nice price for us."

bnc chimes in. "The boy works, of course, for the group that tried to get into the gallery. The dwarf is their decker.The dwarf's got the burner link. I have my FlySpy at his position. As Taurus already addressed them so openly and the boy gave us away, we might as well make contact. Nothing to lose, but if they are indeed the vampire slayers, we might be able to get some cooperation out of them.
Anna, Nova, here's the commcode of their burner link."

She releases her agent and begins to manually to sift through all hidden icons in the area around the dwarf to identify his commlink (unless the burner link was slaved to it anyway, in which case I would already see it as I have two marks on the slave). James leaves the boy's pseudo-commlink in the cab, but exits it. He then runs on autopilot to the dwarf's destination.

"Look, it is not in our interest to cause you any harm or break your stuff, alright? If it would, this conversation would go a lot different. We are here to prevent a greater threat and you are involved in this one way or another. So, until this is all resolved, you are not going anywhere and neither is your deck. Afterwards, you can have it back and go. It's a precaution, so, sorry for the inconvenience. It was your decision to take this job and get entangled in this whole thing. Sometimes these things have consequences."


<< But why would the Shadow Hunters want to break into that gallery? What about that 'creepy leather statue' the boy mentioned? Also, can we find out anything about this 'Elizabeth Czezinsky' magic student at the university here. >>

"Anna. Can you check out whether the dwarf is doing something on the astral? Also, can you assense the creepy leather statue?"

bnc tries to find out about Czezinsky.

A matrix search confirmed that Elizabeth Czezinsky was enrolled at Prague University, working on her PHD in thaumaturgy (Implications of increased leyline activity) as well as being a volunteer as magical first responder for the local fire brigade.

>> Would help if you tell me where she is. I assensed it, It told you to get near that thing if you fight a mage which is not a vampire or something. It is terrible and interferes with my mojo. It resonates with many negative emotions.
Exiting the car for a moment Anna prepares herself for the summoning sh strengthens her mind, and resolves and then submerges herself in the daunting process of crafting the spirit. The process is successful, and she manages to pull off a form out of humanity's common consciousness but not without resistance.

Spirit ready she texts bnc >>just tell me where to send my spirit, or what did you have in mind.

bnc sends her an updated map of the city. "I indicated both James' and my FlySpy's positions in the maps. James is quite near still, you should be able to find him on the astral. He's on his way there, so you can just follow him, if that's easier for you."

Following the flyspy from the astral was not easy - James being larger was easier, but no mean feat either, so it took longer than either spirit or drone could have moved on their own.
Even more, it required Anna to concentrate on the input she received from her spirit.

Nova barely noticed the draft as Anna opened the door and left the car. Just for a moment, she thought she heard a rushing noise as if a gust of wind had blown into the car.
But as the door closed, everything was silent again.

<< @Anna: Could you check astrally, if there is anything in the car? I felt a gush of wind, not sure what it was. >>

Nova herself switched her ultrasound on, and took a closer look around.

Anna tried to guide the spirit, and then she thought she heard something. Getting alert instantly.

Even as Nova activated her ultrasound sight she felt it expedient to leave the car as quickly as possible.
Immediately after she left the car, she could "see" in her echo sight how the boy and another figure apparently flew out of the car.
The boy had started to scream, but the hand of the second figure clamped over his mouth as the two began to accelerate away.

Anna, having switched to astral sight, could make out a powerful spirit carrying the frightened boy.

Anna says ">>It's a spirit! I let her take him. .

Anna remains very alert and ready to channel the barrier spell to intersect with the spirit, however, she'll only attack it if the spirit is hostile toward them.

As soon as she saw the invisible form, Nova triggered her auto-injector, in order to stop it.

"You let her ... what? We don't know, whether they want to rescue him or silence him. Don't let them get away!"

Nova does not want to leave this up to chance, so she pulls out her Guardian from the hidden holster and fires a silenced burst at the spirit form.

If she gets the time after Nova's shot, Anna attempts to intersect the spirit with the mana barrier spell cast at a high force.

The bullets glanced of the spirits form who pressed the boy more tightly to his now visible body, trying to shield him.
As the spirit started to accelerate away, Anna's almost perfectly translucent mana barrier encapsulated and imprisoned it. But only for a second. The spriit rammed his full will against the tough obstruction and despite Anna's impressively powerful construct, it shattered, the spirit moving further up and away

James was about a 100m down the street, but out of sight. The small drone still in place gave her the trajectory of the fleeing spirit - it was heading right toward James' relative position.

Being sure, that she won't be able to stop the spirit without her first attack doing any damage to it, Nova waited to see what Anna still had up her sleeve.

Anna makes an arcane signal with her right hand, which is barely visible, while her left-hand touches her pocket were a dark obsidian ball cracks as she channels its magical energies toward the spell. Her previous spell was reckless, and futile but left her with sharp pain, and a large hematoma on her right forearm. The spirit is struck with a well executed, but generally harmless stunning force.

As Anna cast a damaging spell against the spirit, Nova moved closer and zoomed in to fire at it once more.

The spirit moved away at a good pace, but not fast enough to avoid getting hit both by Anna's spell and Nova's bullets.

Meanwhile, Taurus found that at the backdoor of the gallery still a whole lot of nothing happened - a state of being that likely would persist at least until there were no more visitors around the gallery. An event which was still about seven hours away.