Well, here's an opportunity to blow the investigation. Tell the potential bad guy we are on to him. Bongo is not the best at sussing out logical consequences (Hey, his cerebral cortex won't be fully developed for years yet.) but alarms do ring in his head. Hmmm. The best lies have some truth in them.

"No, no," he tells the student, "We're looking into someone else, but there was a moment a few days ago when Frank and that person were in the same place at the same time, and we are just checking off all the leads, including unimportant ones, which," he sighs, "are usually almost all of them."

"By the look of you, I figured you might be in the Journalism program at Baltimore City College. So I took a stab to see if you were doing something similar. If I had been totally off base, you would have just blown me off. But you didn't. "

With a segue like that, this is when the uninitiated might give out information.

Selina and Tubesnake are able to watch the action on Bongo's feed. Mike's well soundproofed room is silent except for his light breathing and the light hum of the HVAC. With no recent rain, the stormdrains are pretty free from distraction as well. Not even any signs of ghouls living in the area.

A sad look comes over her face for a moment, but then she regains her composure and her posture.

"Baltimore City College is my Alma Mater, but I'm not here for any investigation. I was simply invited to a party. "

She starts to turn towards the elevators again but pauses. "Is there something about Frank you want to tell me?"

She pauses again. "I haven't exactly met him in person yet. It's....... always nice to know who you're visiting."

After another moment she adds, looking a bit more suspicious "And how did you know I had anything to do with Frank at all?"

How much can be told with a single look? Here is Bongo's take, running in the back of his mind as she speaks: A young woman, graduated from college with high hopes, soon to be dashed; at loose ends, money running short, difficult decisions arise; risks are considered.

<< Oh, oh. I think I see another fly buzzing close to the spider's web. Team, you have a few seconds to pipe in to keep me from trying to divert the fly, or maybe enlist her. >>

Bongo answers her, giving the team time to opine. " You know the right questions to ask. Maybe journalism is your path. I'll answer the last question first. I saw you looking at his building, and it looked to me like it was his window you checked out. I took a chance, and it looks like I got lucky. Yeah, information is power. Safety. "

He strokes his chin, in the universal gesture of 'thinking what to say next'. Which of course is exactly what he is doing. He looks at the window. He looks at the woman.

<< She already knows you/we are looking into Frank. Don't see any harm in trying... >>

(OOC: Mostly waiting for Koekepan, but a little reply shouldn't hurt)

She gives a somewhat apprehensive glance at the window as well, and a somewhat longer one at Bongo.

"So you're staking out his window, and staring at people underneath? What is this all about? Have you been to one of his parties or something?"

Tubesnake has a few minutes, between checking (and verifying) utility maps and navigating plumbing to keep half an eye on Bongo's feed.

He thinks for a bit - and considers two avenues of inquiry, each of which might take a bit of a Matrix search. The first would be to run off her appearance, and try to look her up on that basis. The second would be to try to run a search on the college's alumni and courses.

Perhaps there's a list of students and alumni that he could use to cross-reference for this search. That's the smart place to start.

Bongo just knows that Tubesnake and Angel will be doing Matrix stuff, so he circumlocutes, including a few morsels of the truth. He keeps the video feed going.

"My coworkers and I are looking for someone. A few days ago this person was seen in the company of Frank, so I thought it might be an idea to do some legwork. No, I've never been to one of his parties. Do you know anything about them? How one gets invited to one?"

(OOC: Since I bothered to think about it I'll take it that Tubesnake actually does the searching. Normally searching the Matrix is an extended test that takes minutes. So still fast, but not so useful in a conversation. But finding the schools webpage shouldn't take more than a complex action. Figuring out they don't have a public list of students a second (they of course must have the records somewhere, but that's hacking rolls). However image searching linked socials narrows the focus to where complex actions seems reasonable again. With tubesnakes 7 dice (I'm assuming he doesn't go into VR) it takes 3 rolls to get six hits to find her in some images of her around campus with some friends and in a bar so she was actually at the school just a year ago. Tubesnake figures he'll have names for some of these people and other info soon (getting up to 12 hits). )

She seems unsure how to proceed with Bongo and generally looks nervous and uncomfortable with everything.

She then looks down from the window at a minor disturbance in the park. The female Ork with the fresh black eye from earlier is shouting at a human female on a bench and then manages to land a square kick on her, sending the smaller human onto the patchy grass. The Ork sits down and, while the human says something under her breath, that seems to be the end of it. Everybody else around pretends not to have noticed, if they even looked in the first place.

The Fox girls seems to screw up her courage again and she lifts her nose just a little in the air and says "Well, you just have to be cool enough to be invited. Now unless you've got something important to say I need to get going."

(OOC: I think Bongo gets 12 dice even on scent. With an impressive 6 hits) On the note of noses and air, Bongo catches her scent in the breeze as she turns to leave. Not the scent of deodorant or perfume, but the BO of someone who hasn't been able to get a proper shower in a while, though she's somehow managed to keep her face clean and her hair at least brushed.

She starts to move, but Bongo can tell she's still listening.

Having heard no opinion to the contrary, Bongo decides to share.

"Well, actually, yes, I think there is something you need to know. The person my colleagues and I are trying to find is a young woman, missing for about a year. She would be eighteen years old now. We were hired by her parents to find her. The first lead we got was an image of her at a bar in Baltimore five days ago, accompanied by a much older man with his arm around her. That man turns out to be Frank.

"Some digging led us to here where he lives. We're planning how to proceed. It's possible that Frank has some kind of control over the young woman, and may be using her for, well, you know what men use young women for. So here I am now, talking to another young woman who has some kind of special invitation to a party at Frank's place. If Frank is up to something nefarious, then I fear you too might be a target.

"So, yeah, I think it is important you know what kind of situation might be getting set up for you. I get a sense of people I meet, and about you I have a feeling you might not have a lot of secure options right now. On your own, looking for a way to make ends meet. If that is true, you would be just the kind woman a predator would find ideal.

"Does any of this ring true for you?"

She seems shocked for a little bit on hearing Bongo's words.

Eventually she chooses to run a short distance down the street. But, once sufficiently out of view of the park and the window, she stops leans back against one of the supports girding the downtown rowhome, and then slides down it so she's sitting with her legs up against her chest and her arms wrapped around those, and she starts crying and slightly rocking back and forth.

On looking around there aren't a lot of people on the sidewalk at this time, and they're doing a pretty good job of not sparing more than a glance.

Bongo notices an exception is one old lady with grey hair in curls and a nice purple dress walking from a car to the elevator. She gives Bongo quite the stink eye as she goes. The guard looks briefly to see what she's staring at, but gets back to business a moment later.

She eventually manages to choke out. "It sounded like so much fuuuuun. I could really use a fun party. They really liked my clothes and accessories. They weren't just asking everyone down there. I could tell. They were only messaging and inviting meeeee. And then who knows? You know? "

She sits with a deep frown for a while. Then gets a slightly suspicious look. "Wait. Wait. Let's see that picture quick."

All this takes some time. Enough for the fifteen seconds (5 combat turns) it takes Tubesnake to run down the socials. What he gets in that time is a name, Nari Ramos, some links to her socials, which are relatively public, and some basic metadata. Notably that about a year ago she changed her status from student to influencer, and that it appears she unfriended a great many of her friends and family during the run up to the presidential election a couple years ago. Her feed in those times was updated extensively, with multiple posts and pictures most days. Things have mostly dried up, at least in terms of her posting about herself publically.

Seems like a harmless little trove of data to share. Tubesnake does so without a qualm, letting the team know.

<<Hey there, folks. Looks as if we might be on the way to pinning some of this down. Here, have a look at this little datatrove. Angel, maybe you can cross-reference apparent locations based on metadata and backgrounds to establish a pattern of movement.>>

With that, Tubesnake returns to finagling a way from a latrine bowl into a ventilation shaft so that team slithery can stretch to a broader array of destinations.

Bongo shares the picture of Frank with Sophie with Nari, thought he doesn't use her name just yet.

<<While you folks are scouring the matrix, could you check on the face of the old woman in the purple dress who seemed a little too interested in me? Maybe she is with Frank. Maybe she is involved in ensnaring young women.>>

Nari curls up a bit tighter. She eventually says. "Yeah that's frank. He sent me some pictures. I don't recognize her. Mostly I was just hoping I'd catch you making stuff up, so I could go up, have a bunch of fun, and everything would be OK."

She doesn't seem to know what to say after that and things go silent for a bit. After a few moments she goes alert for a second and mumbles "He's checking if I'm Ok. He sent a message that says he saw some man bothering with me, and to let him know if I'm Ok and still coming because he says he's worried and is about to contact the guards."

--------------------

(OOC: Well, to keep things moving I think we've sorted out what Tubesnake wanted to do and sorted out how to read his character sheet, where he has navigation and some particularly relevant knowledge skills. Also the electronic group could be useful. He'd have been messing with this while Paul was still moving around, and could use that signal to triangulate positions to confirm being in the right apartment. He's got time to just buy some successes and get it sorted. Things get a bit less leisurely once out and about. )

Having figured out the right location, and battled against what seems like an entirely inordinate amount of flushing Tubesnake manages to get a little while of dark in the bathroom to get his wireless drone out while the wired one ducks back down through the trap, taking the plastic that can been coating everything but the other drone's feet. There's a bucket with a plunger and some cleaning products cluttering the area behind the toilet, making a pretty ideal hiding spot for a little soft drone. Looking up, the vent cover is the type you can just pull down to clean the fan. Being able to climb on walls, it should be able to get in if it opens easily enough the trick would be if anybody came in at just the wrong time and noticed.

On audio Tubesnake can hear the thump of electronic music, and darklight and flashes of light come around the gaps in the closed door into the dark bathroom. There are voices and laughter too. Hard to make out, but it seems a number of people are here.

-----------------------------

First to Tubesnake and then Bongo, Angel gives an overly enthusiastic "OK!" to their search requests.

Following the interaction down in the park as much as she can, Selina wonders whether they are going to pay Frank a visit tonight, already. They do not really have anything solid, just yet. Mostly suspicions. The ward certainly complicates things. It will be more of a risk to get any information from the astral side. Maybe Tubesnake's approach will give them some better idea what is going on there, apart from the obvious.

She is quite distracted, though, as Mike certainly is fun company.

Bongo fills in the crew. << I've been made. I suspect the woman is with Frank somehow. I'm going to move away and be less interesting to them. >>

To the young woman curled up in a foetal position, " I think I will wander away now, seeing as Frank et al are concerned about me. The choice is yours, but I wouldn't have anything to do with him if I were a young woman.

"With our sharing of that image, you and I have contact info. If you want to talk later, let me know."

Bongo starts to walk back towards his first place in the park.

<< Would be interesting to know, how the invitations are handled. Is it more open, like people can bring friends or tell others about the party, or is it invitation only. >>

Nari stays where she is and says, quietly, but loud enough for Bongo's hearing. "I'll just say you were some guy creeping on me, and I sent you away. " She doesn't seem to have decided what else to do.


On the Matrix Angel chirps back in trying to reply to everyone after a little time passes.

<<So Mr. Snake. Uh. Well. I could look up data, but I'm not really sure what to look for. One thing is I think she used to want everybody to know everything she did. And now it seems like she doesn't want anybody to know she's here. If we didn't know she was here. I'd have to dig around to find the trail of data she'd left being here. She only posts other stuff in public spaces. Not sure if that helps. Oooh, I could probably get data off of her comlink if you'd like! Bongo has her current comcode and everything right? >>

she then shifts gears and responds to Bongo

<< The lady had an open node, so I found her socials. Nothing linking her to Frank so far. Other than being in the same building. She doesn't seem the party type. Maybe she just thought you were doing something bad to Nari. You know, in the trids I've been trying to watch, people do stuff when a girl is crying in the street. >>

Last she shifts back to Selina, though she has the line open to everybody in the group.

<< Maybe it's the same as however you got in. I could look and see what might be on your comlink...or Mike's logs? >>

She has a surprising amount of emotion over VR. She seems quite eager to hack something, but seems nervous about doing it without somebody asking. Maybe the bit of trouble with Tourmalines security system earlier .

<< @Angel: There would be some temporary building access code on my phone, yeah. Seems likely. Mike will have something more permanent, but I would appreciate, if you leave his 'link be. If he notices any tampering at some point, it would just reflect back on me. But I also meant how Frank is doing the invitations and what he tells the girls. Nari should know that, obviously. >>

Aha! A payoff!

<<OK friends, I have tactically valuable information. There's a lot of flushing in the local commodes, which suggests either titanic episodes of diarrhoea, or quite a few people. The presence of thumping boom-boom electromuzak tells me that it's a party. I have a drone infiltrated, and I'll be working on opening a vent so that I can get a Fly-Spy in there despite their best efforts at screening them out. Teamwork makes the dream work isn't just for metas, it works for drones too. I'll get you eyes on the party (because it sounds like one, too) ASAP and relay my stream for anybody who cares.>>

This done, he reaches back and to his left, and picks up the FlySpy to activate it once the exhaust fan's screening systems, inner and outer, are nicely popped out.

Inside the bathroom Tubesnake maneuvers the drone around to open the vent, which would be routine except for the door suddenly swinging open. (OOC: presuming AR for this as Tubesnake doesn't much care for VR infiltration is 5 dice (at least Tubesnake doesn't default, unlike the pilot) no hits, but not a glitch and no hits for the person coming in on perception with some penalties, so I think that works out in the drones favor).

Tubesnakes feed shows a large bear in a leather jacket charge into the room. At least it sort of looks like a bear. However a moment later the head to the costume is removed, showing it to be a troll. He seems to have some real commitment to the costume as his horns and dendrites have been mostly taken off and the surfaces smoothed. He has a flap on the front of his costume, but not the back, so he has to go through a whole affair of taking off the jacket, taking off the shoulder harness and sidearm, and taking off the whole rest of the costume to do his business, quite the distracting hassle.

He grumbles a lot fiddling with everything, but pumps himself up before leaving and burst out of the door with a loud "Woooo!!!" , which draws some cheers and laughs from people down the hall, and closes the door.

Once he's done nobody else enters the bathroom for a while, giving Tubesnake plenty of time to pull down the vent, get in, and pull the vent back up while the fan is off.

The good news about the vent system is they aren't using metal ducts, which require a strong signal to get through. Looks to be glass ceramic blends that won't burn. The ducts as such are narrow but wide, fitting in the sound insulated spaces between the floors. The tricks is that in order to get that nice gemlike smooth surfance the HVAC vents are some distance away from the rooms. It'll take the drone a while to get to the end, and probably some time hunting for an external vent with a weakness or some damage to the grill so the I spy could get in. Ideally without any very strong fans in the way. It'd be pretty easy to get around to the vents to the other rooms, though Tubesnake expects those to have a couple screws.

----------------------------------


Angel gives a digital pout about not hacking Mike's comlink but doesn't argue. After a little bit she asks. <<What about Nari's comlink? Bongo should have the address. She maybe already doesn't like him? I'm....a little unsure about that. But they were talking and now she's just crying soooooooo>>

(OOC: I wonder if folks are feeling stuck, but I think mostly you're able to give each other what you need. With the smooth glass surface the large vents are on the underside of the building, near the top of the pylons and between the uptown/downtown structures. Bongo can get eyes on those for Tubesnake to make that go fast. And Tubesnake already has a drone with eyes on the bathroom at least, which could let him work with Serina to get Fiona in through the ward where nobody is looking, or just scout the other rooms from the limited views from the grates on it's own.
Note that it's in the system for air going out of the apartment. But due to how sealed the apartment is there are such vents in each room. The drone hasn't checked, but tubesnake is confident that the dryer vent and most likely the kitchen vent would be easier access grates versus ones with screws inside the room. And of course it's easy for the annelid to open and close the bathroom vent.

And of course Angel really is just looking for anybody to give them an OK for hacking something like Nari's comlink, or anything really

Since Bongo already went back to the inner street, I could advance time a little and let him look at the vents since that's pretty automatic.)

-----------------------------------------------------------

As Bongo heads heads back into the park, the situation is much like it was. Some tension about who gets what spot, but as the night starts getting on people are starting to settle down a little. Sleep might not come easy, but a little AR distraction from a spot to sit that's yours. Well, at least it's as nice as they've figured out how to manage things. It isn't much of a fun park otherwise, and littler is everywhere, mostly the nutrition packs Bongo would remember from earlier.

At the mention of vents Bongo can see that there are a lot of them down there. That fancy facade must cost them a lot in forced air. His zoom and memory almost do the work automatically (OOC: can buy the hits, this is the kind of thing Bongo excels at) of scanning his memory for a good entry point. He can see the all the vents have gratings, but they're more concerned with birds or large objects versus large insects, it's more the whirring exhaust blowers. They seem fairly reliable. Ninety percent or more are going just fine. But there must be hundreds down here, so it's more the simple matter of picking out the one that's closest to Franks apartment it's up the street a little ways, but hopefully ten meters off is close enough.

As he he situates himself he gets a ping on his com. It's a message from Nari

<<So it's a nice uptown place. and there are guards the things. He couldn't get away with anything really right? Plus I've got my comlink and at least you know where I'm going.

I'm sure I'll have a great time!

But, maybe just check in later and I can tell you about it? >> She ends the message with a cute animated smiling fox that jumps around in Bongo's AR.

Bongo relays imagery of the vents to Tubesnake. <<Does this info help, Tubesnake?>>

He responds to Nari, <<You are the Captain of your own ship, Nari.>> He wonders if she will be surprised he knows her name. Maybe that will give her pause.

<<Let's keep in touch tonight.>>

Paul looks at the pictures as they come in, and do some location and angle correlation.

<<Yup, figure it does. Kind of what I see from here, too. Just making sure I'm not about to run Mizz Buzzy into any fans or anything first. You got any special requests for anything or just sneak, peek and relay?>>

Bongo chimes in. <<It would be a stroke of luck if we were to find Sophie here at the party tonight. >>

(Ooc: There might be some rolls if there were a particular rush or you were under fire. But Tubesnake can just buy the successes to get a fly spy to the large exhaust fan that's down that Bongo sighted, get in between the bars of the vent, and generally follow the angles and signals from the Annilid to get them together. Then it's just a matter of whether the Annilid wants to open the vent for it into the bathroom or dryer. You might do infiltration rolls if you want to try and avoid being spotted or on camera getting to the vents.

Which is fairly easy, and maybe nobody would care anyway..

And then also and especially in the apartment where a large bug might get a reaction if the party goers are anything like my wife.)

At the moment Bongo is at a loss as to how he can help, so he positions himself so that if there is a sudden exit by machine or persons he can assist, maybe by distracting or at least by getting in the way of pursuit.

As he does so, he picks up a couple of items that would make good impromptu missiles and pockets them in his loose clothing chosen for just such a purpose. Don't want to be too conspicuous. His favourite such missile is a brass cymbal (think Oddjob from that ancient 2D 'movie') but he has never found clothing with appropriate pockets for those. Pieces of curb or a bottle filled with dirt are good substitutes.

Paul gently, carefully sends the Fly-Spy in through the ventilation structures. He takes his time, looking for hazards as well as the best, most discreet vantage point. Fortunately, vents are not generally well-illuminated so that stands to his advantage.

With the scouting done by Tubesnake's little drones, it was a lot less dangerous for Fiona to take a peek behind the astral curtain. At the very least, she could enter from a direction where the drone's had signaled an all-clear on the mundane side. Now, there could still be surprises purely in astral space, but that seemed quite unlikely, so a plan was quickly formulated for the spirit to do some astral reconnaissance.

First, of course, Fiona needed to get back to Frank's apartment, and then she would take her time to carefully move through the astral ward, in order to not raise any alarms. Once inside, she will carefully look around for any further astral entities, and only if there are none around, she would then start to assense everyone inside, and generally try to get a feeling for the place.

In the meantime, Selina explores things further with Mike. Who said, you couldn't mix business with pleasure sometimes. It certainly helps, if you can be in two places at the same time, more or less.

Angel doesn't feel like the group likes hacking other people's stuff. She's starting to pout in the resonance, and would have complained, but Brewster had given her a number of speeches on "professionalism" which he explained was sort of like how you had to behave differently in different forums and games. At least that was the explanation Angel could remember, there had been a few others before that. Brewster seemed to always be trying to explain things to her. He was very nice, but Angel wondered if that vein that would throb in his neck sometimes was normal.

As she reminisced it occurred to her they wouldn't probably mind help with their own devices...especially if they didn't find out until it was useful.

Channeling the resonance she summons a machine sprite. A measure of exhaustion set over her as it materialized. She digitally yells at it <<Why do you always have to be so difficult!?!>>

Summoned to be sneaky, the wisps of blue floating text that made up the sprite said nothing, but laughter emojis can be seen floating among the random letters as it flits from her view. However the connection was still there, and with a thought she has it take over as pilot of the flyspy, still following Tubesnake's command to scout.

(OOC: In part to get some decent dice on the thing for infiltration, but I should learn technomancers better Angel gets a point of stun for all that. If Tubesnake had withdrawn access to the flyspy she would have needed to make hacking rolls. And he'd have a chance to notice if he was interacting more directly with it, certainly he would if he tried to take direct control, or was for some reason in the node in VR, otherwise the pilot is just doing a better job than usual.)

With the door closed The annelid pops open the bathroom vent enough to let the flyspy through and then closes it again. The flyspy positions itself behind the door hinge. When the door opens again for a dwarf in a pitbull outfit it flits out and hides among light fixtures and some of floor to ceiling potted plants found in the apartment as it gets a quick look at the lay of the apartment.

It zips towards the room with the large window first. The master bedroom door comes first and it's open. Although the regular door has been replaced by one made to look like the door on a jail cell, so the flyspy could go through it even if it were closed. Inside there isn't a bed, but instead a great many large pillows and beanbags scattered around along with blankets.

The doors on the next two bedrooms are normal closed doors and the flyspy passes them on its way to the main room with the Window. The center of the room is taken up by small circular table, on which a female werewolf is dancing. However it doesn't take a mage to tell that isn't a metahuman the out of place mist around her and the slightly shifting form gives it away as a spirit. Also a metahuman affected properly by gravity would have to work on keeping the small but three foot tall table balanced instead of being able to focus on dancing. The apartment lighting is dimmed, and a strobe light over the werewolf spirit is producing the affect Tubesnake noticed earlier.

Around the room the rest of the furniture is up against the wall, and a dozen people are packed into the space, either sitting in the couches and chairs or dancing. There are twelve of them and all of the metahumans are costumed in some way as a anthropomorphized animals. Some like the troll are in full fur suits and it's hard to tell much about them except to guess at their race.

This includes three wolves, the pitbull dwarf, the troll bear, a very well made german pinscher mask on someone smoking a cigar through the mouth and with a human male dress tux over a skintight bodysuit matching the pinscher coloring. He's holding the leash of a human man with a leather "dog" mask that obscures his features, who is sitting by him on all fours.

However the other five are done up more like the cast of the musical "Cats" and you can actually get a pretty good idea of their features under the facepaint. There is a male cat, two female cats, a female squirrel, and a female fox. The "fox" is Sophie.

She has a collar on but isn't restrained, and appears to be having a good time dancing with the cats.

When the doorbell rings a wolf with blue fur, probably male by the design of the mask, that had been standing by the window looking down turns and heads towards the hall. On his way he waves at the other blue furred probably male wolf who follows him, but slouches so as to seem shorter while they follow. The first wolf also grabs Sophie by the shoulder as they go past and brings her along.

The three make their way down the hallway past all the bedrooms to the combination kitchen and dinning room where the front door is located. The kitchen looks quite similar to Mikes except for the floor to ceiling potted plants, one of which the flyspy nestles into as the lead wolf opens the door to let Nari in. Sophie and the slouching blue wolf jump over to her. Literally bouncing up and down as they shower her with compliments on all her foxy paraphernalia. Sophie strikes a pose to show off her own outfit.

The lead wolf stays silent and hangs out behind Nari by the door.

Between the annelid an the flyspy there's eyes on the bathroom and the hallway leading up to it. They can confirm nobody is around it at the moment, if Fiona wanted to come in there, taking advantage of the ability to fly to come in through the ceiling or floor to avoid the rest of the apartment.

After relaying the new information to her, Fiona will enter the apartment astrally near the entrance, in order to get a look at the auras there, which includes Frank, most likely, Sophie, as well as Nari and the other "wolf". Maybe she can learn something there, about whether Sophie is controlled in some fashion, or under influence, or actually there out of her own free will. But that is all she will try to accomplish at this point, she will leave right after. The whole time, she will also try to stay out of Frank's field of vision, just in case he is astrally perceiving, since it seems more and more likely, that he is awakened.

<<Welp, looks like Sophie's having fun. Of course, could be a personafix chip or something like that. Or plain old intimidation or money. Wouldn't see any chip marks under all that costuming, so what now? Bust in, drag her out kicking and screaming, and kill everything else until it stops leaking?>>

Fiona is able to come in mostly through the vents evading any patrolling spirit and gets through the ward. She takes up a hiding spot behind a plant on the opposite side of the kitchen, so that while the flyspy can look to the side to see down the hallway, someone, or the spirit, would have to come entirely around the room and either have to go around or be tall enough to look over the open plan island to have a chance at seeing Fiona. Of course without materializing they would also have to be astrally perceiving.

Fiona can assense that the wolf she's guessing is Frank is awakened with a lower magic than Fiona's, the other three are mundane. They show no currently sustained spells on them, but in terms of residue Sophie and the other wolf have many traces of manipulation magic showing slightly in the astral, like a motel room bed under a blacklight.

However things start getting much more interesting in the astral quickly. While the three giggle and laugh "Frank" casts a spell on Nari while he's behind her. In the physical domain it's quite hard to spot, magic isn't that obvious until the force gets high, and the fursuit mask muffles expressions and gestures. In the astral it's much more obvious, and interesting as a shamanic mask forms, one much larger than usual, that matches up nearly perfectly with the fursuit mask, only making it look more "realistic" as opposed to sticking out. This keeps the shape the same but gives it a glow in the astral.

While this has been going on Angel had gotten a bit bored with the flyspy and mostly was starting to like the idea she'd been given something a professional charter to do things. She notes that Selina is incredibly busy and surely doesn't want to be bothered with matrix details. She does a quick hack through the firewall and looks at the download from The Tourmaline system....and then gets out, as there's an annoying agent trying to scan her. The file seems be a basic sort of token that the guards can read, it doesn't seem to be designed to care about the identity of the person and doesn't necessarily log name, though it requires the comlink to stay in open mode or it will cause an alert and it indicates what floor they belong on. Not too hard to spoof, but but it might not hold up to a guard interrogating the link to the main system.

The main system seems like something Angel should ask about to stay professional, and keep Mr. Snake happy with her and letting her use his drones.

But Bongo had instructed her to investigate the old lady, and her comlink had been open at the time and was still on. Angel zips into it trivially. It was a decent OS with a decent firewall, but the lady had neglected to install any other security software like analyze. Angel notes that she lives on Franks floor, but down the hall she checks the comlinks camera briefly and finds it's been set down on a table, where she has a view of the old lady sitting all alone, next to half a bottle of red wine and something on the trideo where a guy dressed like a pirate stops swordfighting briefly to kiss a woman.

Angel turns off the camera and checks for a corresponding invitation routine. Looks like it's pretty easy to set up. You send a service request to the Tourmaline system with a basic description of the product or person and an associated comcode for the person or delivery drone.

She opens up a com to Bongo <<Hi Bongo. So you said I should investigate the old lady. I'm pretty sure she just doesn't like you. She doesn't seem to have anything to do with the party, or much of anything. However I could have her comlink invite you up. I could also spoof permission on your comlink to go in, but having an actual invite would hold up if there's any scrutiny, and I can silence any notifications on this end. >>

Bongo smiles a little smile. <<Sure. Go ahead and swing that if you can. I don't know if we can use it tonight, but it would be good to have if we move tonight. Tubesnake is in via his machines. Selena is in the building already too. You're in via the matrix. Might as well make it a full house. After you've done that, can you see if you can get some connection to the building security? Might help if we have to leave with the girl in a hurry.>>

Fiona pays attention to the moods of the people for a moment. "Frank" is excited and confident. Nari was hopeful, but mostly apprehensive and afraid. The emotions of Sophie and the other wolf are complicated, and hard to read. There's definitely a simple layer of actual fun with the fox paraphernalia, but a lot else going on underneath they might have a hard time describing themselves, desire, fear, maybe even love. It's even harder to "see."



However as Fiona looks she sees Nari's emotion suddenly switch after the manipulation spell to simple eagerness.
"Frank" says "Hey. Let's introduce you to everyone else. I know they'll think you're amazing too. "

Nari is enjoying the attention, and allows herself to be led hand in hand with the other two to the forward room where the party is going on.

In Bongo's feed Angel says <<SURE!>> and then, since she already has access, fires off a request for Bongo and his comlink to have access to this floor.

Bongo sees the request pop up in his feed with instructions to proceed to the elevators.

She than says a bit more slowly <<I can get back into the main system when i need to, but there is ICE on the lookout if I linger too long. But there are nodes all over doing different things. I can spoof them, but it's a little hard to me to follow>> She says with a bit less confidence, but then rallies and adds <<but if you tell me what you want I can make it happen!>>

(OOC: It just occurred to me that with the action moving, maybe everybody is waiting on everybody with everyone leaving the kitchen.

What Thanee probably already appreciates is that while I don't think there are rules on astral infiltration, astral forms glow in a world of grey, and auras actually leak through non astral forms a short distance (so you can't gain immunity to LOS magic by wearing a bee keeper outfit). So hiding in the astral in the same room as a spirit has about the worst penalties there are for infiltration.

So it'd be up to Tubesnake to get eyes on if that's what you want. But maybe they'd prefer to keep an eye on the hall and front door. You could also get involved or let time pass. Similarly Bongo is clear to get in and out, but he could also just keep that in his back pocket.)

------------

IC:

With his attention still significantly spread over other drones and the real world due to not using VR, Tubesnake notices that every so often someone will come around to look at the van. However nobody has felt like coming over. This particular area doesn't have much for street lights so it's quite dark and abandoned. If anybody decides to come by to ask for a cup of sugar he should have some notice. Although the occasional vehicle come through., the autopilots curving away as they pick up on the cones.

Nobody is bothering Bongo either. Though with his sharp ears he can pick up some vendors taking about him. One, who doesn't realize he can be heard, says "Ok, so I think that guys thing is he's trying to pick up a desperate homeless chick. But, check it out, his drek is too sharp to be dat cheap. Thinks he's too good for my girls 'n that creeping on the homeless is so much better. Imma wait until he gets short down a second time."

Selina is very much not being left alone. Mike is quite the giver. Actually, Selina is pretty sure he faked that last orgasm and is relying on his enhancements to keep going after switching things up a little, but he seems to genuinely enjoy being capable of that.

With an invitation "in hand", Bongo decides to amble closer to the entrance in case he is required to join the crowd in the building. He gives a momentary glance at the 'vendor' who waits for him to be shot down. He memorizes his face and that of his buddy. Well, OK, he records their visages too.

Tubesnake thinks to himself, while the proceedings continue.
++OK, got eyes on the situation. Can't do much with those drones, but just in case it could tip the balance, I'll send a shankworm up. On autopilot it will get up the side of the building in the seams of construction, mostly out of view, and then slither across to the ventilation port. There's enough room for it to get in the same way that the Flyspy did, so at least I'll have a knife ready when time comes to puncture something. Not a good site for a long shot, so leave the gunnery out of it. While that sucker moves, I think that I need to deter some folks from getting too interested here.++

It doesn't take Tubesnake longer than a minute to send a shankworm on the trail up to the area of operations, but while it walks its slithery way, he goes to get a big sewer ventilation fan and hook it up over the manhole. Pretty soon the area around the van will be unpleasantly fragrant - not a smell that bothers him, once he has his respiratory gear on, but something that will make most people want to find something else to investigate.

(OOC: First, just checking where Tubesnake wants the flyspy.

Second, the shankworm is quite capable of climbing the building and due to the softbody it should be able to get through seemingly too small gratings. I'll also give it credit for crossing the street safely. The issue is that without any relevant software the pilot doesn't really understand "sneaky" very well. The access point is above a rowhome just a little north of the park, near where the vendors are talking about Bongo. Though the shankworm could try and go up at some other point and work it's way around. Anyway Tubesnake has some resources here between Angel or a distraction from Bongo that he could tap to avoid a potentially risky roll. Though there is also just the brazen approach where he's trying to keep reasonably out of sight, but mostly relying on people walking on the less populated sidewalks at night and guards within elevators not really paying attention or caring about a little drone minding it's own business. That's what I would have interpreted from the post. )

--Tubesnake wants the flyspy where it can see the main party exit so as to keep an eye on arrivals and departures. The fancy details of individual deviations and perversions can be left to others to discover, unless they happen to come to the attention of the annelid relay or the shankworm.--

--As far as the shankworm's sneakiness, he's not too worried about anonymous drones being anonymous, but he will give its autopilot waypoints and directions. Go here, via there, then there. Go do it. Given his AR controls, this should be a minute's work to set up, tops.--

The shankworm comes along via the side of the building. The downtown area here is also trying to cater in it's way to those looking down from above. But unlike the streets that the Tourmaline arches over, with lots of space and maybe a park, on the side the people only have a couple yards of sidewalk to work with between the rowhomes and traffic. There are quite a few less people.

Still, as the annelid makes for the building a homeless human comes over to it. His eyes open wide and red.

"It's a narwhal! But a slug! A narwhal slug! A Narlug!"

He goes to reach for it, but the pilot makes a basic waggle of the spike and he yelps and backs off. Holding his hand, though it hadn't actually been stabbed.

The guards hadn't paid any attention to any of this. They aren't at street level with open doors very often or very long anyway. Nobody else comes running to see what he's on about, and quite soon the shankworm is too far up the side of a house to be easily grabbed.

By the time it works around to where Bongo and the vent with the broken fan are, it's four stories up and nothing bothers it as it makes the rest of the trek.

From it's perch the flyspy wouldn't miss anyone entering or leaving the apartment, and the annelid has an eagle eye view of the bathroom, but neither can see much of the main room down the hall. Audio isn't great either mostly due to the music.

Though occasional shouts or laughter can be heard. As the shankworm joins the annelid the sounds of stomping and jumping give way to moister noises and the occasional "yiff!" or groan gets picked up by a mic.

(Ooc: unless I hear otherwise from someone I'll take it I should advance time until there are some comings or goings at the front door or something significant happens)

Bongo relays to the team, <<Angel has given me access to the building. I will hang out here to be able to do some distraction of the outdoor guards. If you need me inside, let me know.>>

Bongo realizes he doesn't actually know what the parents want. Find her, or nab her. He decides to ask Brewster.

<<Bongo to Brewster:: Located subject. Analyzing their situation. What is the specific requirement for payment? Find and locate, convince to meet, collect against their will and bring to the payers? >>

Within minutes Brewster replies to Bongo going live for the group, seeming to prefer that to a message. He looks the same as earlier, and doesn't seem to have been asleep. He does seem puzzled for a bit though. But soon enough he speaks.

<<Is the issue that you need some less than lethal equipment? If so you're fortunate that myself and my associates do not keep to a nine to five schedule. We may be able to make arrangements.

I could also get the family prepped for arrival. They're staying for the moment at the marina I have an arrangement with in their little houseboat. I simply refuse to call anything you can drive around on a trailer and back down a public access ramp to get into the water a yacht. In a pinch you could just jump on, but things would probably go swifter if they're awake. While they're paid for trouble and those docks, I'd prefer if you didn't bring any. Their boat isn't exactly designed for action either.>>

He sends an image of a small white and blue boat, which also shows where it's sitting at the marina. (OOC: Rather like https://www.catamarancruiser.com/8x31-lil-hobo-trailerable ) .

<< As to the expectations, spending such a sum to retrieve a daughter from a man she appears to be having a good time with at a club implies that reuniting her with her loving family may require substantial persuasion on your part. They do seem rather sure of themselves that in a short time she'll be happy to be back with them, instead of being part of the newest chapter of the Universal Brotherhood or whatever she's gotten herself mixed up in. But if she simply eloped and ghosted her friends and family, well, I suppose that's their problem.

I should go, but do let me know if you need anything.>>

--------------------
(OOC: Advancing time.)

The party continues late into the night, people occasionally head to the hallway bathroom or the kitchen for water or snacks, but they head back to the main room. The turn down the music at 2am, and at 3 the party starts to break up.

Frank finally takes his "head" off in the kitchen as some of his other guests arrive and start getting out of their outfits and toweling off faces in the sink. They seem quite comfortable naked together, and the Pinscher hadn't bothered putting pants back on as he went down the hall.

Soon enough they're dressed to fit in well enough with the corporate set. The pinscher turns out to be the other man in the photo from the club. He leaves with the man he had on a leash. The dwarf also leaves at the same time as the squirrel and a male and female cat, it's a bit harder to tell if any of them are couples or not.

Once the goodbyes and "I had an amazing time's" are done frank puts he head back on and goes back to the main room.

He returns shortly, having attached leashes to the collars of Sophie, the slouching wolf, and the last of the female cats. They come along looking tired and a little wobbly as he leads them into the master bedroom.

Following him is the troll/bear carrying Nari.. She's still got her fox ear headband on, both otherwise she's just wearing smudged fox bodypaint, and a "tail." He carries her into the master bedroom and then comes back out. Frank shuts the jail like door and a moment later the maglock engages. The other wolf puts away the perishables from the party into the fridge. The three then head back towards the main room, with the troll giving a loud yawn, but not really any conversation there.

Frank heads back on his own with a bag full of stuff that he sets on the dinning table. He takes his "head" off again, and pours himself a nightcap from the bottles still on the counter. Now that he's alone his posture gets less confident and ridged. To Fiona's senses he's feeling accomplished, satisfied, and very tired. But he still pulls a trash can over by the table, sits down, and starts going through the contents of the bag. It might be hard for Fiona to tell in the greys of the astral, but the flyspy eventually sees enough that it's obvious it's Nari's stuff.

Frank is sorting things into three groups. One is mostly for her fox paraphenalia, but also a makeup kit, combs, some other packages and small bags, and some actual physical books. Most of the clothes, her backpack, and some pins go into the trash can. He fidgets with some of the patches and things on her old jacket, but they're sewn on rather well and eventually he just puts it in the keep pile. The third group is electronics. He powers down everything, which is the comlink, associated AR gear, and a holo picture frame, and puts them back in the bag.

With a Yawn he takes the bag and his "head" and goes down the hall, eventually going into the bedroom next to the master bedroom, with it's normal door. This leaves some booze and dry snacks out on the counter and table, along with the keep pile of Nari's things.

He comes out and uses the bathroom with the annelid as only the master bedroom has its own bathroom. He's now just wearing a bathrobe. As he steps out a spirit floats over from the main room. It's similar to the one earlier, but a little smaller, and seems to be female from the waist up but male from the waist down. The flyspy provides a conduit of information on its approach to Selina, and thereby Fiona, but it doesn't go into the kitchen. Instead with a gesture Frank indicates it's supposed to stand in front of the "jail" door.

At that he heads back into the middle bedroom, bumping into the doorframe as he goes, and by 3:30 the lights are out. In the quite of the night, the flyspy can now hear loud snoring coming form the main room, where one wolf and the bear should be.

---------------

Outside a group of Orcs stumble close to Tubesnakes van, however the scent soon has them crossing the street and blaming it on each other with slighly slurred speech.

Bongo is a bit more approachable, and he thinks he might have to go for a change of scenery if he doesn't want to start getting offers to flop in someone's house, with or without company, as the vendors start packing up and going back into the houses at night. Gates are locked. It only marginally quiets down, as business is replaced by the sounds of the dogs it seems most people have for their narrow little strips of fenced in and padlocked grass

Back in Mike's apartment, Selina has been very pleased with his performance, and hopefully has been able to give him a good time as well. Thanks to her mental connection with Fiona, she knows that things have calmed down over at Frank's place by now, but she has been out of the loop of what has been going on with their Matrix feed for a while now, lacking access to her commlink without her headband, which obviously went the way of the rest of her outfit at some point.

The elf heads into the shower, and there is not a whole lot of enticing needed for Mike to tag along, even though he clearly shows some signs of exhaustion by now, with more affection shared mostly in forms of kisses and making-out, and hands going all over the place.

While putting her dress back on, Selina casually mentions: "This was fun, we should do that again, sometime." She winks at him. "If you like."

With her commlink access restored, she reviews the latest information, and then also sends a comment to the team.

<< Looks like things have calmed down. Fiona is still inside the apartment, hiding. Frank is awakened, as was fairly likely after seeing the ward. Does not seem to be quite my level, though. He has been using mental manipulations on his "guests". A lot. Mental abuse probably fits his mode of operation better. He must have broken their will that way, as Fiona couldn't see any ongoing magic on them. Don't expect Sophie to be fully cooperative. It might be better to just keep her sleeping or even sedated. That maglock at the master bedroom could be a problem. Can we open that without being physically present? The spirit that guards the door can be handled by Fiona, most likely, without alerting Frank. Of course, there is always a risk that things don't work as intended, but this seems to be the time. After that wild party, they are likely all sleeping. If we can manage to sneak in, and Fiona could even help removing some obstacles from inside, we could get them out of there. Of course, there is the building security to be considered as well, and they do have spirits on patrol around here, too. >>

Bongo perks up when info starts streaming to him. Brewster's reply was mostly what he expected, though perhaps a little convoluted.

<< Well, I've got an invitation, thanks to Angel, that should get me in the building. And I have a top rated maglock passkey that should deal with the cage. I suspect hallways are monitored, but if Selena and I congregated at Frank's door, it would look like 'business as usual'. One of Tubesnake's little buddies could open the door from the inside, so we didn't have to scam the front door in a suspicious manner, and then we two could get to the cage, get in, and unlock the target. I kinda want to get Nari, the new girl I talked to earlier, out as well. The rest are probably too far gone to help.

<< Selena, I suspect, can deal with keeping our target calm or comatose. As we enter, Angel could make her pass at getting into the security system to keep any warning from being broadcast, including as we leave with clearly dopy people. If all goes well, we could be in and out without any trouble. I don't know if Selena's Fiona can handle the inside spirit without alarming Frank, but other than that it could be straightforward. Yeah, yeah. I know. But still, does this look doable? Any suggestions for modification? >>

<< Not entirely sure, if I can get to Frank's place physically. I am in a very different part of the building, and there is a different elevator as well. Not even sure, I would find it, easily, even if I were to be able to roam around freely. >>

Bongo replies, << Angel, can you tell us whether Selena can physically get to Frank's apartment? And if so, how? >>

Angel replies to everyone in response to Bongo's quest, forgetting she wasn't necessarily supposed to be in Selina's comlink while Selina was busy.

<<I looked at the files on Selina's comlink. She's cleared for the floor she's on, a few of the very upper floors where the token she downloaded has AROs to advertise restaurants with a view, and the "promenade" floor. I'm not sure exactly what that means, but the map on their public matrix site shows that floor going between all the buildings.

That would let her stand just a few floors above where Frank is. It looks like it'd be easy enough to add something to her token saying she's clear on Franks floor. I don't even know if any internal systems really check that, but maybe guards do if they show up? I could also do an invite like Bongo's. The old lady left her comlink on when she went to bed. >>

Angel pauses a little bit, and thinks about not asking more questions. It's frustrating not knowing things everyone else probably does. But she decides it's more "professional" to ask.

<<Uhhh, do all the people have comlinks? I was watching Mr. Snakes feed and it...didn't look like they all had comlinks. If they have a comlink they could probably just leave by an elevator?
Like even with the guards there? It seems like it should work. If they have the comlinks they were invited up with I shouldn't even have to do anything.

But I don't know where they'd have put the comlink. Do you think maybe they have headware comlinks? I've heard of headware comlinks? Do we have comlinks to share? >>

Mulling over the situation Tubesnake consider his background in these buildings, and what he's learned from his drones. If Bongo needs to make a fast exit, there should be a manual emergency door override to open the elevator doors. Of course that would set off alarms and there might be an elevator car stuck below, but it gives access to the ladders. The regular stairwells won't go into the downtown homes, but if they force open a maintenence door they should be able to get into those areas with flaps over the downtown homes, and that's "only" three/four stories up. Angel should be able to hack elevators, even if alarms are going off. Buildings like this don't tend to shut down elevators during alarms. Not enough other ways out in an emergency.

The master bedroom where Nari, Sophie, and the other two are has it's own bathroom, so that would mean it's own vent just a little over from where the annelid and shankworm are. Though the flyspy can see the spirit just standing there, looking through the bars into the room.

Tubesnake can also see that Franks front door doesn't have a chain up or anything other than the wireless maglock. Selina could see that Mike's apartment does have such a chain, which seems pretty standard. Though while the spirit isn't looking at the front door, there's a pretty good chance it'd notice if it suddenly opened.

---------------------------

Mike smiles at Selina. "Mmmmmm. I like that dress a lot. I'd like to have a next time with you, just so we can try leaving it on. Maybe have a bit of a fashion show just to ourselves, but with a more personal examination than you can get on the catwalk. "

His hands take a little while to examine the stitching.

"Actually it's really late. How about staying the night and next time can be sooner rather than later? The view from some of the top level restaurants is great in the morning. Though I do have meetings starting at one. You don't get into management taking the weekends off, but luckily Italy is five hours ahead of us.

There's the bed in the master bedroom, and the futons by the window. I'd take whichever you take. "

Tired as he is, Mike gives Selina his best mischivious smile.

Bongo replies, << Well, if Selina needs further permission for Frank's floor, then I probably do, too. So, if you can swing that for both of us, Angel, we can carry on with the plan. Is everyone OK with the plan as it stands, then? >>

<< Frank sorted through that fox girl's stuff, looks like he took her commlink and put it into some bag. Could we see what he did with that bag afterwards? Maybe it is still lying around there. >>



"If I stay, you have nothing to dream about..." Selina replies with a wink.

"No, really, rest up. Don't want you to be all weary during your meeting. And, believe it or not, I also got things to do. Being freelance means, no nine-to-five schedule for me, either."

"Call me in a few days or so, let's have like a proper date. Also, you do know I have more than this one dress, right? This was just for the club, not gonna wear it again anytime soon. But, I'm pretty certain you will appreciate my other dresses as well. They are not quite as ... uhm, conservative, as this one."

If she hasn't done so, already, Selina will give Mike her commlink information, so he can call her.

"I'll find the way, no worries! See you soon, Mike!"