It took Bobby quite a lot of willpower to keep his cool.

After forwarding the message to the group, he sent back:
<<A sorry won't cut it. You messed up big time. Get me your boss on the line now or you'll be holding the bag personally.>>

Frisson responds >> I thought you'd be grateful. I bullshit people often, but I never tell them about it afterward. It was a courtesy because my plan was a bust, and that tip may be worth a lot of money to you. My boss?! No good deed goes unpunished. Anyhow, if you haven't figured it out already, my boss is Tony, head of security at the Gates, and he does not have a comlink. I hope you chill down and do not be an ass about it, but you are free to tell him about my extracurricular activity.

<<That is why you should go to Tony and get him on the line now.
Your stupid stunt is going to ruin everything, because you don't know what I know now.>>

The next voice message says >> Look, Robert Tony will not be accessible before noon even if I wanted to get out of bed and get dressed and go down to his horrible "office". You woke me up, man, I would be there, Tony would be there - but your 50k would not be there unless you get a grip. I'll make it simple to you because shit happened to us too. If you haven't sold the card, figure out how to avoid the sale without losing too much face. If you have sold the card, just track it. Doubt the Halloweeners would be active before evening as well, so you would have enough time to bitch about me to Tony.

She seems genuinely interested in you finding the card. Either because she fears Tony or perhaps Vala? or because for some reason, she finds this entire matter enjoyable. If any, the woman seems to be very excited when things are uncomfortable or dangerous -- but then again, can you really say what about the conversation last night was genuine and what was her playing a part?

<<I'll let Tony deal with you when he wakes up then.>> Bobby sent back

To Big Stank he said: "Well, looks like you have them beat. You'll get some nice concessions out of them if you threaten to destroy the card, I guess."

Mato relays confirmation that the Gau considers the Halloweeners to be the Crimson Crush's rivals.

"Alright, let's get out into the bright light of day," Mato says to Gau, taking the card back from him. He doesn't want to put it in his smuggling compartment because then he'd just have to pull it out a minute later. He slips it into his pocket but keeps his hand on it. With the other hand he will grab Gau's elbow and steer him out of the bank if necessary, but hopefully it doesn't come to that.

Mato goes to retrieve his weapon from security.

<<Coming out. All clear?>> he comms to confirm before stepping out the door.

@Bobby To Bobby, Big Stank says, "I am not threatening anything; I am destroying the card here and now, and they'll never have it."

@Mato: Gau looks at Mato, and his eyes rest on the pocket where the card is. He does not try anything, though. He is silent, along with his thoughts, and he walks reluctantly out of the bank, a bit resentful that Mato did not allow him more time with that new toy. The security guard obliges and mutters, have a good day, sir.

@Tamarind: The Humanis gangers get dangerously close to the bank street in their morning patrol; their convoy would pass the banks in a few minutes. She is uncertain if these human supremacists would do anything on cooperate turf in broad daylight but do they need to find out?

Bobby sent: <<Wait. Big Stank wants to destroy the card. He is worried about Humanis though. Damn, we should have brought a fake along. Stall a bit, I have to make a call>>

Bobby nodded and put on a smile: "Hah, nice. Though make sure to keep your head very close to the card when you burn it. Artifacts like that are super safe to destroy just like that. I'm sure it will be a great learning experience for you.
Gives us also a chance to sell it a second time."

A second later he turned fully to Big Stank: "Didn't you know? True artifacts can be destroyed with enough effort, but they always reform themselves and come back again. Can I assume you'll want to buy the next one as well?"

In the short pause he sent a message to their consierge Ms. Wu:
<<I need to talk to Tony asap - this is a matter of great urgency. The hired help of your casion has sabotaged our auction and that might lead to severe repercussions both for us and the casino.>>

Big Stank seems angry but also sharp and out of place. People look at him strangely, being alone with obvious gang colors. You know, Bobby, either you were setting me up to fail in your previous sentence, or you are now. If it is impossible to destroy the card, why did you suggest I threaten to destroy it in the first place?! "

"Nightmare can't steal my card if I destroy it. So you don't want me to do so... You are trying to sell me out to Nightmare!" it is not a question, not of blame. It is a statement! The paranoid and transparent Orc seems to believe in these words, and he is not even angry; his wheels start spinning trying to grasp the full implications of this scenario. While the boss is silent, Tiny comments Seriously Bobby, Nightmare?! "

Tammie answers right away >> Wow, that is highly unusual, I'll make sure Tony calls you as soon as possible.

"All I've told you is true: True artifacts reform - you just don't know when and where. But there are certain spirits out there that we know, who have a strong connection to the cards' creation. Those might be able to find it if it reforms again.

And I didn't tell you to threaten to destroy it. That's all your idea. I said you could get concessions in exchange for the card - which is what I thought you wanted it for.
I don't give a flying frag about your or Nightmare's well being. That ship sailed when you sold us out in your syndicate. Don't expect us to keep your hoop out of the frying pan.

I'm telling you all this only because you are the customer of our client now. And unlike you, SIS does look out for our associates interests."

Bobby looked the ork in the eyes: "My personal opinion: Those cards are bad news. They talk to their owner and most of those who kept onto them have found a bad end. That's the main reason we kept it in a bank instead on our person.
Destroying the card might prevent you from ending like that. Might. But the best way to avoid that, is to pass the card on to the next sucker and make some cash on the way. Which is precisely what we are doing for our customer.
Sucker."

Mato doesn't have to decide what to do. After collecting his pistol from security, he's not that far from the bank exit. His new cyberears can pick up some of the exchange that Bobby and Big Stank are having outside. That means Big Stank is distracted for the moment.

<<We could level with him>> Mato suggests. <<Tip him off to the plan.>>

Before they exit out out of the bank, Mato spins and pushes himself up against Gau to get right in the man's face.

"Big Stank wants to destroy the card," he says, although it's possible Gau already knows. "Do you have a decoy, or a way to prevent that from happening?"

@Mato Gau nods with a sad expression "that is unfortunate but not unexpected." and he sighs "No decoys, and no balls to cheat a person like him. If you want some time, I can tell him that I need further study on the card and that there is not enough equipment here to finish the test. He'll be annoyed but it is not going to kill me or anything, and you'll get a couple of hours until he loses his patience. I'll need some concessions on your part for that route - because you know it involves a risk of damage. "[/color]

Big Stank judges Bobby and says "Well you only care about money, which is why I don't trust you."

"In what world do you live? We care about reputation, we care about our friends and contacts and we care about sustainability.
If I only cared about money, I would have kept my mouth shut and let you find out the hard way."
Bobby now was seriously pissed off.

"When was the last time you did something that had a positive influence on someone else's life? Caring about money and power is all your syndicate does."

Mato grits his teeth. He needs to intervene before Bobby loses his cool and nukes Big Stank right there in the street, or vice versa.

"No, play it straight," he tells Gau. "But tell him its dangerous to own, but also dangerous to destroy. If I tell Stank that the wisest thing to do would be to let the card fall into the hands of his enemy, back me up."

With that he pushes out the door and makes a beeline to Bobby and Stank before a fight or a murder breaks out.

"Okay, we're here," he says, trying to physically insert himself between the two men before the argument can continue. "We have the card." He holds it up in a chromed cyberhand so that Stank can confirm its existence. "You can get Gau's professional opinion on it. But, let me assure you: you don't want to do what you think want to do."

A bit cryptic, but Mato is trying to cool the temperature. The good-cop, bad-cop routine only works if Mato can establish himself as a credible source. He decides that he can build on some of the things Bobby said.

"These cards are dangerous. They have an agenda of their own. They talk to you. They give you instructions, instructions that you want to follow. They'll tell you to run! hide! your friends want to take the card from you! don't let them! stop them!" He pauses for dramatic effect, trying to let it sink in. "I know, because I've heard them myself." He points to his ear.

"These fact is that these cards bring ruin wherever they go. They're a Faustian bargain, promising power and lucre in the present but leaving devastation in their wake. Destroy it if you want, but if you do you're passing up the rat trap of a lifetime. This card is how you bring down your rivals. You slip this into the trap and watch your adversaries lap it up. They're laughing, thinking they've got the better of you, but all the while they're drinking their doom. That's what I would pay 60K for."

Big Stank says coldly, " Unless you sold me out to someone else, which is why you need the card intact. "
Then Mato exits the bank, and Big Stank regains his composure. "I am going to get a second opinion - and if that second opinion implies that this reforming stuff or card blowing up is dulldrek, I would assume you sold me out.
Tiny looks at him Bikers are getting close; got to GTFO. He looks at Gau and says Card is legit? and then he looks at Mato and says "My card, please." and extends his hand.

Mato places the card in Big Stank's big hand.

"Gau," he says, prompting the talismonger to step forward and render a verdict.

The large orc looks expectedly at Gau. That only mutters . GTFO? Bikers? Looking very pale. The card Gau, is it legit? Oh, yes... it is unlike anything I've ever seen. He offers Gau a ride, but the man refuses . "I'll find some other way." The huge troll and the slightly smaller but still massive orc flee the scene without a trace. Interestingly, several bikers go after them for no apparent reason and break formation speeding up the streets, hoping to catch the two combat bikes.

The rest stop by the entrance to the bank and throw some profane words at Mato. They do not seem very dangerous given the circumstances, but it is an unpleasant scene. Perhaps an orc in a suit seems more threatening to these fellows than an orc wearing pimped-up ganger colors, but maybe they just did not catch the two gangers.

Bobby watched the ork drive off, more or less ignoring the humanis thugs. Their slurs were not particularly clever - not that he'd expect that of racists.

"Alright, let's get that money into the bank and then back to the hotel. We still have a conversation with Tony. If we do this right we might get some concessions out of him. I'm sure he won't like it if word gets out that the casino screws with you when you explicitly stay there to enjoy their protection.

Whatever happens next, at least we don't have to worry about rent this month."

Mato is a little surprised to see Big Stank and Tiny retreat in the face of Humanis goons. He would have thought that Stank would hold his ground. But maybe there was wisdom in retreating. Stank might not have a SIN, or might have a Criminal SIN, and it doesn't look good to be duking it out with SINners in broad daylight. Stank's a long way from home, Mato thinks.

The Humanis squad shouts all sorts of nonsense at Mato and Bobby, variously disparaging their metatype ("tusker!", "race traitor!") and ethnic heritage ("better dead than red!"). Somewhat deprived of his humanity, Mato doesn't have enough of an ego to be offended, but one of the goons does hit close to the mark when he shouts, "Yer mama played wit elves!"

Mato's primary motivation isn't to defend his honor (nor his mother's, since hers is legitimately in question) but to keep Bobby from completely boiling over. Mato keeps himself positioned between Bobby and the goons while dialing up his infrasonic generator to create subtle, unsettling vibrations in the air. He just wants to usher the mob along, maybe encourage them to go home.

Once that's done, he huddles up with the SIS squad.

"The card is still in play," he reports to Raven and Tamarind, updating on anything they missed from their vantage points.

"Before we deal with the hotel, I think we should tail Big Stank. First to make sure the bikers don't smear him, although that seems unlikely. Second to see who he might be getting a second opinion from. If we can find that out, maybe we can incentivize them to offer advice that mirrors our own. We might yet be able to salvage Vala's op."

He turns to Raven and Bobby. "Raven, can your astral friend tail him back? Or Bobby, do you want to wing it after him?"

Then to Tamarind: "What do we have in place for surveillance? I don't suppose you had that bug we were using a tracker for the card hop onto Stank, did you?"

There hadn't been a lot that she could do about Humanis thugs going where they wanted, so Tamarind had kept her resources quiet. But when the combat bikes, along with Big Stank and Tiny, head off, trailed by some of the Humanis riders, that is worth risking breaking cover. Besides, the riders have other things to pay attention to.

She sends one of the Aunties to keep up for as long as the little Fly Eye can, and meanwhile starts working her delivery drones through the skyways to try and keep the bikes in sight. Then she thinks a bit more-- the others brought one of SIS's cars with them so don't need her for a ride. She pulls out of her parking spot down the street and starts trailing the bikes herself, relying on her drones to give her a target destination, hoping that she can take a shorter to close some distance without having to drive too quickly.

<<I'm starting to follow from a distance in my van, and trying to track with drones. The controlled skyways here make that more difficult, but if I can move them to where they can follow more easily I'll stop with the van.>>

And if she overtakes the Spy Eye she'll roll down a window and have it fly in.

Tamarind finds it relatively easy to monitor the bikes because they are moving toward Touristville in an obvious pattern, so even if she misses a turn, she knows where they could go. Between her drones in the sky and her van quietly tailing the chase, she keeps up quite quickly, even if, at times, she lags behind a bit. Big Stank and Tiny are excellent bikers, but they seem to hold back to ensure their chasers stay in the race. Therefore, she is not entirely surprised that the chase ends with an ambush.

Once they enter friendly terrain, there seems to have been something planned because, in one narrow street with bad ariel cover, the bikers fall from their bikes and are then swarmed by a massive number (perhaps 30 or 50) of Crimson Crush gangers, most of them in their tweens. The next thing her drone spots is the roughed-up bikers being carried like trophies terrified and in their underwear around Redmond in a slow but very cheerful victory parade. They are so loud that her flying eye can hear the gang's songs chanting from hundreds of meters away. Their five bikes are now being ridden by about twenty tween-aged children slowly following the parade.


Tony calls Bobby shortly after the message from Tammie Wu. Apparently, he is not *sleeping* and he *does have a comlink number* when something urgent happens he just shares it on a need-to-know basis. It took her perhaps 15 minutes to get him to call.

>> Mr. Walker, Hi. Ms. Wu told me an extraordinary story. I want to get to the bottom of it. Can we meet?

Bobby replied: <<I'll be back at the casino shortly. And yes, reputations are at stake.>>

To Mato he said: "Nah, as much as I want to feel some air beneath my wings, this job is better done by machines. We need to think about who Big Stank trusts enough to take their word. Neither you nor I seem to fit that bill.
A spirit with the Suggestion power would have been what we need here. Can't be helped now.

Personally, I blame Vala for setting us up with spirits and an unreliable security arrangement. And unless Tony shows some goodwill here, I intend to let him take the fall here, by warning Lysander about the very contra productive arrangement they have going there."

He sighed: "Let's head back and see what this day brings next."

Back in the privacy of the car, Mato asks, "Okay, Bobby, but what's the overall plan? To confront Tony in the murder-basement and complain to him bitterly?

"We're little doggies. We have to walk a fine line. There's a threshold of inconvenience associated with the amount of effort it would take to geek us and disappear our corpses. Given the murder-basement, I'm guessing that they have a well-established process for this and thus the threshold is not very high. Let us walk and talk delicately."

Mato looks to Raven to see if she can either back him up, or put a more diplomatic spin on Bobby's message.

"I'm aware. But one: We are not meeting in the murder basement. Two: I don't intend to accuse him personally, but I'll tell and show him what happened. We have a strong case that he owes us a refund for the suite - which was meant for us being able to safely conduct our business. Three: Disappearing us will only get him in hotter water - after all I put a deadman switch on a little info packet that will go out if I don't stop it.
Four: If it comes to the worst I'll take him with me and as many of his goons as I can. Use the distraction to get out."

Bobby looked grimmly determined while he drove.

Mato laughs darkly.

"That's very noble of you.

"But, yes, I agree that we should not meet in the basement. There was an astringent, antiseptic quality in the air that made it feel like breathing a bottle of vaporized bleach."

Assured that Bobby is not on a course to surefire suicide, Mato divides the credstick between multiple accounts in increments of ¥12,000. It remains to be seen if they can collect Vala's portion of the payment, but at least they've been paid something.

Tamarind lost track of who was where for a bit with the ambush, but quickly focuses her drones on following Big Stank and Tiny. She's confident that one of those two will hold onto the card, and so the question is where they are going.

Rachel has been watching the exchange in front of the bank from a distance. It looked a bit heated at times, but then it cooled down again. When Mato emerged with the card, things went down pretty quickly, so it looked like they managed to do what they came for. Now, whether that would play out the way they want it to... time will tell.





When Mato asks her, Rachel replies: "Sure can. But I probably should do this myself, as I know better what to look out for. I can stay in the van in the meantime."

She follows the gangers in a large distance, staying on rooftops with her astral self, while Tamarind is using her drones and the van to follow them as well. She flinches a little bit, when the ambush happens on the Humanis gangers, even though, she has little sympathy for those. Still, hopefully they are merely getting 'taught a lesson' here. There isn't much else to do, so she gets back to the van.



Back together, it is now time to plan their next steps.

"I don't think I have all the information here... so, you are saying Tony sent this biker lady, Frisson, and some others after us? Is that right? Did she actually say that? Or was she working on her own? What exactly would Tony want to achieve here? We should be very careful with any accusations, even if they are only implied, and first figure out what is what. Staying to actual facts and not interpretations of those, might be a good idea."

"I'm not saying it's Tony's fault, but it's his responsibility. Frisson and her peeps work for the casino as hired security. There job is to keep trouble away. What they did with us, crossed several lines. They tried to fleece us, they sabotaged our auction and they provided us with wrong information that in essence will make our mission fail.

That is on Tony, because Frisson and Co were allowed to work with insufficient oversight and/or parameters.

Vala booked the suite there explicitly so that the card would be save from the wrong people. We communicated our plans upfront with Tony and he agreed that we could conduct our business there.

So it is his responsibility to make this right. If he doesn't step up, we'll have to eat that reputation hit. But that also means we will tell our Peers that the Gates is drek for business and an unreliable partner.

I'm almost certain that Tony will be willing to part with a bit of cash to make us and the problem go away."

Bobby explained

"He could just say, what they do in their free time can hardly be his responsibility. I mean, that wouldn't be entirely wrong."

"But, okay. I see what you mean. I just think we should carefully consider how to present that information. Ideally, we just state the facts about what happened, without any assumptions, and maybe he will offer something all by himself."

"Also, it isn't entirely clear, whether the job will be a success or not, yet. At least, that is what I can piece together at the moment."

"Don't worry, the facts are damning enough. Just remember - never negotiate against yourself. If those facts get out, Tony will have a problem. Getting robbed by a security guard because they were on break at the moment, won't convince anyone."

Bobby replied, now a bit less tense than before.

"Nuyen is good," Mato agrees, "but favors might be better."

He pauses for a moment, contemplative.

"We're moving up in the world. We won't be snooping through garbage and taking photos of illicit mistresses forever.

"We want chips in the big game. Tony can get us those."

Mato isn't entirely sure why Bobby is the one driving, but if it keeps him calm and focused on something other than the Beast in his breast then maybe it's a good thing. Mato turns around in the passenger seat to look at Tamarind and Raven in the back.

"To Raven's point, Vala's job is still in play. We're on thin ice, walking the knife's edge, whatever metaphor you want to use. But should treat it like there's 50K on the line and do what's in our power to bring that home.

"We know where the card is now and we know where it needs to get to. We need a plan to get it from Point A to Point B.

"Raven, do you have spirit friends that can plant a suggestion in Stank's head? Nothing overt, just trying to nudge him in the right direction."

Mato wonders who else Stank would go to for a second opinion but struggles to think of any. Urubia? Maybe their surveillance will give them a clue.

"Yes, that would be possible. But we would need to find a situation, where it can be done without them noticing, otherwise, we would just help them figure this out."

The morning traffic is heavy as usual and the way to the Gates drags giving a while to contemplate but not doing much for relaxing. Once you arrive and park the car (or use their service to park it for you). Tammie greets you in her usual happy/polite manner, and says "Tony will meet you in the office at the 5th floor."

Bobby nodded: "Lead the way."
By now he was very calm. He even smiled. At least he showed a lot of teeth.

"Let's make it happen," Mato nods to Raven. "Let's keep Stank under tight surveillance - or as tight as we can manage remotely - and pick a moment to plant the seed."

***

At the Gates, Mato stuffs his Walther into the glove box and leaves it behind.

"Thank you, Ms. Wu," he tells Tammie, and moves to follow her and Bobby.

Is there a weight off now that the card is sold? No, not yet. He still wants Vala's piece. If Stank destroys the card, then the card can't bring down Nightmare then can it? There's a part of Mato that wants to be in Redmond quarterbacking this operation, not in the Gates trying to shake down Tony for favors. But Mato understands that Bobby is a creature of instinct and that he needs to get this out of his system. If he doesn't then he's liable to bite someone in the neck, which would be unproductive. So Mato resolves to play defense first, offense second. Hopefully the card will still be in play by the time this is over.

The "office" is a large room with a small coffee corner, a fridge, a large table, and a whiteboard. Tony is already there but not entirely their kin to what a person in AR would look like, but when he notices the team coming, he regains his alertness. Unlike what Frisson has said, he does not seem tired and eagerly working.


" Mr. Torres, Mr. Walker, Ms. Pandey, and Ms. Moore. How lovely it is to have you in our facilities. Can I make you some coffee? Are you hungry? We have an excellent chef on duty today. Makes killer omelets. "

He seems satisfied with another opportunity to speak to the team and expects a quite pleasant conversation.

Bobby dismissed the offer with a slight wave: "Thank you very much for that offer, but we don't have much time. Let me send you a quick call log from one of your freelancing security people."

Bobby sent the call history with Frission to Tony.

"As you can see, your operators took it upon themselves to run a scam on us. As we relied on your security to conduct our business, this hit us somewhat from the blind side. Their manipulation of our communication channels - including faking messages from our bidders - as well as posing as a contact to the Halloweeners forced us to sell our merchandize prematurely and to the wrong customer.

We relied on your assurances that we could conduct our business here and do it unmolested.
We understand this is not your fault, but it happened under your watch. We are interested in keeping good relations with you and your organization, but we also have our own reputation to worry about. So we'd like to give you a chance to make this right, before we have to explain what happened to our customer and the other bidders."

Bobby looked at Mato and Raven to give them a chance to jump in.

Tony remains serious and listens intently. "Let me get it right, that woman first threatens you; then she lies to you about the identity of her employer to get you to accept a lowball offer and give credibility to her threats. Then when you tell her that she has lost, the woman tries to get you to delay or cancel the sale by lying to you again about the identity of her employer, and you still take her words for face value. Haven't you heard of Fool me once, shame on thee, fool me twice, shame on me? "

While I do have a third layer security of semi-independent shadowrunners they cannot accept jobs without my approval, and my only female member in that team is Finestra, and she has an alibi for yesterday. The point is I am certain that Frisson does not work for me. However, like I said before, my organization would be very happy to collaborate with yours, so let me see what I can do to help.


The mystery is that her intel seems very fresh like she was in the meeting.

I had my best people scan your suite for anything technological right before the meeting, so it is unlikely that there is a listening device, but I will scan it again at your approval. Magical security was top-notch, we have wards for the building, and Vala took a team of free spirits to secure it, and she paid their leader Melpomene with her life force to ensure their loyalty. So listening to you with magic is also quite difficult.

It has to be the metahuman factor. I'll hash it with Brick for the protocol, but I trust the man, and I don't trust many people. The least trustworthy in the meeting is Melpomene since one can never trust addicts. How are your relations with her? "

Mato is suitably impressed with Bobby's diplomacy.

"Thank you for your consideration," he tells Tony. "We wished to keep you informed about activities under your roof.

"They disrupted our business and may try to disrupt other activity on your watch. We would hate to see that reflect negatively on you or your organization."

"Couldn't they simply have hacked one of the phones? I think she even mentioned something like that..." Rachel adds.

Tony looks at Mato and says, "Part of the job, Mr. Torres. He looks at Rachel and says, "Good, that part might have happened, but my estimation is further down the road one of your devices was compromised."

Mato isn't sure what else can be accomplished at the moment, although an omelet does sound good. Still, he suppresses the desire to request one. He doesn't want to be in Tony's pocket for anything, even some eggs and herbs and chèvre and maybe some chicken & pork sausage, roasted rosemary potatoes, and baguette, oh Great Spirit yes...

He snaps back to the present he DNIs some thoughts.

<<Melpomene is a loose end. We don't know if she is done with us or if the games will continue. We should try making contact and see if we can mend relations.>>

<<Same for Frisson, but I don't see any value in extracting revenge. If anything, maybe we could flip her and put her in play to help manipulate Stank.>>

<<We shouldn't linger. We need to pull Stank's strings.>>

Bobby shrugged: "The point is, we didn't trust her. And we didn't pay her. Her calling us to apologize makes only sense if she was worried we'd come after her and inform you. Which means she isn't done yet. Frisson was already around the casino before we ever were involved in the case and knew how you operated. Which in turn means, she and her group - if there are actually more people involved - had the information before we did. That means our employer was compromised from the start.

And yes, it's very likely that the muse we pissed off is behind Frisson.

I suggest we let each other know when we catch up to Frisson. It should become clear then to what extend you were compromised - and how."

<<It's not about revenge, it's about consequences. We can't let people get the idea that they can just walk over us. The bombing was bad enough. Getting conned is one step too far.

But yes, let's first get Big Stank to do the right thing. If the muse is behind all this, we'll likely run into her anyway.>>

Tony sighs That may be Mr. Walker. Tammie can message the muse if you'd like to confront her. As for Frisson, I'll have her pretty face to the wall of shame and let you know if we find her here again.

Tamarind keeps on with following Big Stank and Tiny, as best as she can. She'd like to head back to the Gates soon, as she is fairly exposed being out on her own, but also it matters to know where they are going in case it is someone surprising.

While she drives, she thinks, and she comes up with something that might be useful? She messages to the rest of the team <<I still have a drone in the Lantern. I could swap out its memory with that of the one that was in the card case, add some audio from what Mato recorded talking to Big Stank, and then have it move to be more easily seen. They might just crush it, but with some luck they'll get someone to open up its memory and see the information about Big Stank having the card, and hopefully the info then would get to Nightmare. I can't guarantee that would work, but it might be one way to let him know, without being quite so obvious about it.>>

Mato nods at Tony's suggestion. But he'll ask Tammie directly about making the connection with the Muse; he doesn't want Tony as the middleman. As before, he doesn't want to be in Tony's pocket for anything, whether it's an omelet or a comm call.

<<That's brilliant>> Mato replies to Tamarind.

<<The complication is it might be too brilliant for the Halloweeners. They're psychopathic pyromaniacs. I can only imagine one smashing the bug with the heel of their boot, not picking it up and dissecting it. Carn-Evil might be clever enough... and sober enough... to do it. At some point you have to think that if Carn-Evil is that clever then they would back an overthrow of Nightmare.>>

Mato can't imagine that a free spirit would make a good supervisor.

<<But a Trojan Horse... I like it... I like it a lot.>>

He debates which side Carn-Evil would be on, trying not to project his own thinking too much. But how can you mimic the thinking of a demented Rager who is either a savant and/or college-educated? Doing so would put your mind at hazard.

Bobby chimed in:
<<I like the principle of the idea, but it makes it look like the leak came from us. Can we somehow get a layer of separation going, so Big Stank can't blame us as easily for ratting him out? Maybe make it look like one of his lieutenants snitched? Would likely involve some hacking.>>

Tony says "Alright, feel free to use the space if you wish, but I need to get back to my work. Thanks for the heads up, and I hope I could help." the plain-looking, middle-aged man stands up and walks out of the room without ceremony.


***************

10:00 - the Lantern is active again. Day shift arrives to tidy the place up and bring it openly, and there is chatter and complaints as the employees go on with their day. The drone picks up a conversation fragment. "The other night was brutal, they torched five bikes one by one in front of the place, and the explosions shook everything; customers were afraid it was terrible."
"Yes, I heard something happened, but I did not know it was that bad. So we're opening again?"
"I would stick to day shifts until it is safe."

12:00, the doors to the Latrines open at noon, and the drone are finally freed. The drone can have duty boots, and that skilled hands move the tanks from the latrine, robbing the drone of hiding places very quickly.

12:00 The drone with the card wakes up to report two gunshots but no visual data. It happened within the last 15 minutes.


I hope they do something about this driveby.

After Tamarind reported the drone's findings, Rachel asks: "The card is still at the same place where we tailed them to?"

"I could quickly go there on the astral and see what's going on," she offers. "If there is anything to see still. Since I have been there, already, it shouldn't take long to find, at least."

If there are no objections, she will find a cozy place to leave her body in the meantime, and summon a spirit to accompany her, just in case things get heated, which, knowing who might be involved, could very well be the case.

It isn't a perfect plan, but it is what they have so far as a way to maybe point Nightmare at the card, so Tamarind does as they'd discussed. She clean's out the Kanmushi's memory of the night before, and copies in selected files from the bank that morning. Anyone good at hacking or knowledgeable about drones will realize that these are more recent updates and not from the right sort of camera for the Kanmushi to have taken them. So if they are too brutish they'll just squash the drone. If they are too sophisticated they'll realize that they've been given a deliberate information feed. She just hopes that maybe they'll be just clever enough to fall for the ruse.