(OOC: Partly for expedience and partly rethinking NPC choices, I think I'm able to move regardless of Kokepan's initiative, especially since he already indicated his action, and, due to the low speed of the Flyspy which maches its running rate, it will arrive in initative pass 2. Leaving Thanee clear to indicate her choice for IP1 since she beat the wounded orks, and Bongo and Willie don't get a reply by then. )

In the kitchen Selina can hear one drone continuing to sweep the bedrooms with bullets as it goes along. Some pop out of the kitchen wall, but between the drywall and decorations they've had to pass through, they aren't very dangerous.

If there is more than one drone in the hallway, they're doing something other than shooting, or they're waiting to shoot.

Tubesnake fills in his tactical map, while reporting verbally.

<<Ares drones. Armed and armoured. One vectored thrust, multiple groundbound. Probable support outside to get them through windows and delivered onsite. Probable multiple riggers controlling. Seem to be attacking indiscriminately.>>

Not really knowing what they are up against exactly, and having no means to really do anything about those drones, Selina looks for some decent cover to hide behind for now.

She looks over to Abaje to see how badly the ork woman got hit, if it is obvious enough to tell.

Selina takes cover behind Abeje and the kitchen/dinning room's "island", the drawers and cabinets hopefully full of something substantial. Crouching she can still peek over the top into the hallway.

Selina doesn't have Tubesnakes talents with medicine, but she observes that while Abeje got thrown down hard and seems to be gasping for breath there doesn't seem to be any blood pouring out onto the ground, so hopefully that means her armor and cyber stopped the bullets from going deep.

In the far corner of the room behind a trunk freezer, Lenny virtually shouts <<I've gotten into a drone!>>

He doesn't seem to have yet been able to get it to change its behavior.

Tubesnake orders the Flyspy to get out of the other room, and it complies, flying through the same gap in the door to return, going at its running pace.

While running, Bongo and Willie are habitually keeping their heads on a swivel, and could notice that bullets are starting to exit from the room immediately under the one the flyspy just left on the 99th floor, and then the 98th, though with very low velocity, as if they had to go through a lot.

But they'd definitely notice the explosion of the wall of the apartment the Flyspy just left (OOC: at the very end of the first initiative pass, such as with a held action being used before being lost), sending chunks of plastic wall flying outward and then starting to waft downward through the open area inside the building. The Flyspy was facing forward while flying away, but it'd still pick up that noise, flash, and turbulence from behind (OOC: But it's also got just enough distance to avoid having to roll for damage. Though, technically, I think the tiny thing should still get nine boxes).

Bongo is 31 meters away from that hole, essentially being in the South West corner of the promenade. Willie was a little faster, and had made the turn and made it four meters north towards Monifa's area. So they can't see into or be seen from the hole in the wall, but are currently flanking it.

With Bongo's memory, that explosion sounded the same as the one that blew open the doors at the ends of the hallways in the two apartments.

(OOC: Action to Bongo and Willie at the top of the second initative pass)

For a brief period of time all is simply motion.

There isn't any shooting. Just the sounds of boots drumming their beats on the thin metal of the promenade, VTOL engines whining, and imperceptibly over that din, Paul's flyspy doing its best to hustle to it's destination.

(OoC: Thanee is up)

Selina turns to Abaje. and says: "This will make it harder for them to see you and therefore hit you."

Then she casts an invisibility spell on her.

Abeje gives a determined grunt and takes off towards the hallway. She doesn't throw herself entirely in front of it. Flying lead is still dangerous even without a great target.

However unlike when Bello tried the same thing she isn't instantly met with a burst of bullets and gets off two bursts, but doesn't speak out loud.

A moment later there is a thwomp and a grenade zips into the room and airbursts. Fortunately it's an HE grenade in a space where the walls aren't holding up. Paul's flyspy watches the wall and door burst outwards in front of it, making a similar but less impressive hole than the one behind it, but more than enough for people to run through.

Inside the room Abeje had moved out of cover, and the grenade bursts behind the island. However it bursts closer to the wall than Selina, avoiding the worst effects even in this tight space. (OOC: only 4P -2AP damage for Selina, and no damage for the hunkered down Paul).

Bello groans and Lisa lets out a squeak, which at least means they're still talking.

From the other room a burst of fire erupts, with bullets zipping out the large gap where the wall was. Bongo and Willie are entirely safe from their flanking position, but they can't see where the shots are coming from either. However across the building, closer to where Monifa was, a trio of orcs take some hits, one of them looks like they got hit hard.

A bunch of orcs on Bongo and Willies side of the building open fire (OOC: Also with Held actions) however Bongo and Willie are pretty sure a lot of them are throwing lead without an actual target, and the others are trying to, at best, aim at targets a good fifty meters away with SMGs, pistols, and one shotgun. But it's making a lot of noise, rising up to challenge the sound of revved up VTOL engines.

(OOC: Now it's into the third pass. Bongo and Willie went into it holding. Selina has a 3rd pass. )

Selina's armor manages to deflect the incoming blast just enough to keep her from being harmed (4 hits).

"We should move out of here. They probably have more of those."

Time to find a new position. Where there is one grenade, there are more. Keeping the spell on Abaje active, Selina runs away from the direction the grenade was coming from, looking for a way into the hallway.

With a large hole blown in the wall directly behind her, Selina is able to run out of the room and even get a couple meters down the hall, getting some still intact wall between her and the hallway.

It's been at least ten seconds since shooting started, and Willie hasn't fired a single bullet. This is just intolerable! As he and Bongo run towards Monifa's location, Willie sees an opportunity! A vector thrust drone just opened a hole and revealed itself. It's clobberin' time!



Bongo knows what comes next and keeps running.

But damn, there comes another drone out into view. Bongo, too, has felt next to useless, but now a target presents itself. Wouldn't it be cool if he could taker out a drone with a couple of daggers. The stories that would be told! He takes his shot at fame!

(OOC: With their bonuses Bongo missed, until I remembered that the drone was a -2 dice for having to make two defense rolls against Bello, on rerolling Bongo manages to connect with both knives by 1 success each, doing a total of 12 damage. Also Monifa's folks don't get to attack because they lack knowledge of the nuances of initiative passes and held actions versus throwing lead when you can.)

The drones shoot out of the holes in the building, but not for long under the daggers and fire from Willie and Bongo.

The two VTOL drones seem to lose control and start the process of falling down.

The flyspy gets spun a little by the wake of the much larger drone flying out of the hole, but still completes it's commanded mission to return, providing Paul with an image down the hall. It appear the three drone arrangement was the same as in the first hallway. The little drone in front is damaged, but is now laying down suppressive fire through the apartment and out into the walkway as it moves down the hallway, but hasn't entered into the kitchen yet. Not doing the best job of keeping bullets from going wild, there's still a noise from the invisible Abeje and some chaos on the promenade.

The drones in the other apartment are firing more deliberately, though they can't get an angle on their foes that dropped the VTOLs.

After the last burst Orks are being more defensive and one throws himself down on the promenade, causing the spray from one drone to miss. A second isn't so lucky, and seem to catch a few rounds, though at least from wide bursts instead of the nasty wounds from more focused fire.

(OOC: On a Perception 3 auditory test one might pick up the sound of VTOL engines and guns still going from the outside)

Willie is momentarily stunned by what the kid just did. (He thinks of Bongo Slade as "the kid", even though they are basically the same age.)

"You just took out a combat drone with knives! Holy shit! Good work, kid!"

Bongo lets a little smile show on his lips. "Damn right," he thinks. "Somebody aughta write a song about that."

They continue towards Monifa.

Paul finds his Flyspy the only part of the team with eyes on either of the apartments, and he's pretty he's not seeing Abeje.

However he then sees some flashes of hot gas and the sound of gunfire as he presumes Abeje shoots the already damaged little drone in the front. The middle drone seems already to be disabled, so there aren't any drones at the moment that the flyspy can see.

(OOC: Though Paul or the flyspy might be able to hear that there was another VTOL outside that has been doing some shooting, as above) .

Bello heeds Selina's words falls back to where she is, obviously not moving well, but still allowing Lisa to use him as cover.

As they fall back, others from Monifa's crew are approaching Selina from behind.

Bongo gets a quick reply from Jett to their earlier message. <<Good call.... forwarded to everybody... whack any drones!>>

While some of Monifa's crew has started back towards the North side, some still continue south. Willie and Bongo have already passed two of them who continue to run towards the south apartments.

The drones inside the apartment without Paul and Lenny stop shooting outside for a bit, as fire is exchanged within the apartment along with a female scream, definitely a battle cry, at least before it chokes off.

Beside ball Lenny yells out "Fuck! I just took over that drone and it's dead! Drek, I guess I know enough to spoof something. Just gotta lock onto another node."


He continues to stay behind the far freezers with Paul.

(OOC: Now Paul is up).

Paul's immediate priority is disseminating tactical information. The whole team gets access to a map overlay with drone positions and third party positions and assessed status.

He has time to respond to Lenny: <<If you find a live one, see if you can trace back to riggers.>>

(OOC: Technically Lenny has to wait for another free action. I suppose that's already a lot of words. He's mostly busy in AR. )

Lenny seethes with frustration at how slow he's moving while everything is happening so fast. Back in his corporate job he'd just jack in and be fast as lightning, but with bullets and grenades flying he isn't about to slump into VR. Still, will there be anything left in a moment?

Outside there's the sound of different guns, either new drones or perhaps gangers at windows.

In Paul's feed a small crawler drone with a clawlike arm that had been sitting out of sight all the way down the hall drives out and over the side of the balcony, since there isn't a trellis on this apartment to get in the way, there's an explosion as if it was rigged with explosives or a grenade. There's a similar explosion coming from somewhere around the other apartment (OOC: Everyone can buy enough hits for that as it isn't quite simultaneous, so it stands out, but you could roll for more details)

The gangers in the sightlines of Bongo and Willie are finally getting their act more together. A rifle has arrived, and gangers are taking more aimed shots into the apartment.

For Willie and Bongo's part, they have made the turn at the North side of the building. (OOC: The other gangers shooting and explosions were in the low initiatives of the first pass, now we're at the second IP. I guess if they wanted to charge into the first door they could reach on the North side Bongo and Willie could have done it in the 1st pass, but I took it they're trying to get to the middle of the hallway where they'd gone to meet Monifa). After rounding the corner and traveling a few meters they get a view through the hole in the apartment the team isn't in. There's a little drone in the kitchen all shot to hell, but behind it there's a wheeled drone that's still showing signs of life.

(OOC: Range just shy of 50 meters. Willie gets there first.)

Willie and Bongo are getting close to where they want to be but another target raises its metallic head. As they pass the opening through which they can see the drone, Willie takes a shot. Bongo figures Willie has this, saves a knife, and draws a second one, continuing on towards Monifa.

Willie's shot.

Selina slowly retreats while communicating with Monifa's finest.

"Abaje, don't stay out in the open. I will have to drop my invisibility spell soon."

"Bello, are you wounded, or just bruised?"

It's hard to tell with Drones, but the drone was making itself a pretty easy target and Willie sees sparks as some of his rounds connect. The quick Ork with the rifle fires again at one of the drones again for good measure.

Bello keeps his gun up, as if staying ready to protect against anything else that might come out of the hole in the wall. He manages to choke out "Really hard to breathe. "

Outside, there is the sound of automatic gunfire, but it's getting quieter, more distant.

(OOC: Third Pass)

The outside autofire continues, but again is getting quieter.

Willie and Bongo are both quite agile and show it off as their feet drum on the thin metal promenade floor. (OOC: Buying two hits) This is the spot from the north where one can see into the apartment, but that also makes this the spot where the drones had taken down a number of Orks. The pair vault over a body and keep their footing on the slick blood metal surface.

Down below there is the sound of the Ares VTOL drones finally hitting the ferrocrete on the first floor.

Willie and Bongo barge into the door left ajar by the Orks that come out to investigate the commotion.

It might have helped Willie that runs a bit faster than Bongo (OOC: Got more hits a while back on the athletic check) as guns jerk towards him as soon as he goes through the door, but nobody puts any bullets into his toothy ork face.

Inside the room Monifa is yelling "Don't everybody just jerk towards the door, when we don't know what's going on where, eyes out the windows!" She's wearing the same tank top as before, but has traded the leather pants and boots for black athletic pants, MMA gloves, and bare feet. She's covered in sweat, presumably from the training she mentioned earlier, but doesn't seem so worried with a half dozen of her crew in this main room. There's another half dozen younger Orks also in sparring gear, but they aren't armed except one that got her hands on a pistol and mostly just look surprised.

The orks behind Selina pass her as she moves backwards and also pass Bello and Lisa. The lead one opens fire as they go around the corner at one of the drones.

The same thing is happening from the other direction into the other apartment.

(OOC: Just to avoid confusion, the drones are disabled, but they don't know that or want to take the chance. Plus they want to say they did something in the fight. It works out that Selina yelled to Abeje. I had her duck into the doorway instead of advancing. If she was still in the hall I might have ruled she could have gotten hit instead of the drone. Back to Selina in the third pass, after which it's initiative again.

Although to avoid drawing things out and making Willie and Bongo count out words per initative pass I'll say things are wrapping up, especially for the PCs now that Monifa's people are getting out in front. That said many are still expecting the other shoe to drop with an attack from the North now that a bunch of Orks ran to the south.

There are also a fair number of wounded, dead, or dying Orks. Bongo and Willie are aware of those they had to get around. Selina can't see them, nor into the other apartment, but obviously there was some action there as well.

There's a lot of pained yelling coming roughly from there, and maybe adjacent to the freezer apartment's balcony, such as from wounded on a different nearby balcony.

With a moment's respite, Willie replaces the partial clip of regular ammo for a full clip (30) of APDS. "Took out some drones back there, but figured they were a distraction, so we came back here."

Bongo sheathes his knife. "Some of your people are hurt. I'll keep my senses peeled while I try to patch up a few." He starts with the nearest injured gang member and plans to work his way outwards if no further hostilities ensue.

When things are getting a little less hectic, Selina takes a moment to assess the situation.

"Lisa, have you healed Bello, already? Otherwise, I can give it a shot. If we have someone who is handy with a medkit, might want to wait for that first. After magical healing, that part is no longer doable. If you have others wounded, you can also send them my way. Now that I think about it, maybe we should go to that place you mentioned, that is a little less straining. If it's safe, that is."

She makes sure that Abaje is out of harm's way before dropping her spell and making the ork visible again.

Monifa gives Willie a little smile. "Yeah. Your forwarded message is the only real intel I've gotten, and that basically said drek all. So let's get eyes on people! " She points at two gangers "You go west and you go east. Rattle every fragging door and get people looking out the windows, down the stairs, and on a swivel and I wanna start seeing some chatting about what is where. " Then she points at a different pair. "Get eyes on the roof, but keep your assess down."

Outside Bongo hears a loud explosion from far below. That gets everybody tense, but someone says "The drones that feel just went up like some kinda fragging nuke!"

That's an exaggeration, but a bunch of grenades cooking off alongside fuel seems reasonable. It's a lot of noise inside a building, but pretty localized and he remembers the structure was heavily built down there. Probably it's be people in the vicinity that were at risk.

In the hallway the Explosion keeps people looking around with guns up. Bongo is the only one right this moment going for the injured.

(OOC: First role triage. Second roll stabilization. Third roll stabilization. That didn't work out, but that one at least has enough blood in them to try again, but with a -2 modifier).


Lisa says " I'm just sustaining a spell to protect him. If those things are still out there, or more arrive, they could shoot anybody on the roof like last time. "

(OOC: Presumably, Selina moves around to perceive her spell on Abeje standing in the doorway of the master bedroom in order to let the Orks that just charged into the room by. )

Bello manages to choke out "Fix the walls. We need to fix the walls. ...Tower might send drones. Lets 'em see everything. "

Lenny thinks to the group <<I hacked another drone! What should I do?>>

The Orks aren't shooting, so either there's a drone hidden or he got into one of the fleeing VTOLs, which could still be connected to the matrix despite the physical distance.

<< @Lenny: Nice job! What kind of drone is it? Where is it? Can you use it to scout for more information? Or figure out who is controlling them, and - ideally - from where? If you need any help with that, maybe Angel can lend you a virtual hand. >>

"Alright. Let's see if I can do something about those wounds first."

With Fiona's help, Selina takes the time to buff herself, which should help with the heavier Drain from working her magic under these circumstances. Her ally isn't going to be much help inside the building, due to the Background Count, but she can still aid her sorcery from outside, as long as she stays within her control range. And keep an eye on the Rover in the meantime.



With that done, Selina concentrates on Bello's wounds.



"Are you feeling better?"

Paul tries to gather what information he can while he's at it, before getting back to the medkit to render aid. There's no question but that there are people needing help, and after all he did carry the kit all the way up here.

Lenny replies <<Well, I can't do anything to control the drone at the moment. Somebody is jumped in right now. But I can try tracing them. Shoot. I didn't think to let Angel know about what's going on. >> he starts messing around in the matrix.


(OOC: Bello has 9 boxes of physical damage and 2 of stun. I tend to let lieutenants have separate tracks. )

As Selina heals Bello, she notices that Lisa looks very relieved. Healing can be very painful.

After enough time has passed for the spell to become permanent Bello nods at Selina and says "Much better. I don't suppose either of you have any whiz tricks to fix walls? " Lisa shakes her head, though she does seem to be thinking it over.

Bello being magically tended and Abeje being too animated with other orks out on the balcony to work on, Paul could move over to the other apartment he scouted.

He sees the ork woman he's seen through the flyspy, but she's beyond help. Going forward down the hall there are four orks down in the master bedroom. The walls are just riddled with bullets from what must have been multiple drones pouring fire into the room. Two orks near the door are absolutely riddled with bullets. It looks like the other two had been trying to use a couch as cover on the north side of the room. It didn't seem to help them that much, or maybe it did as Paul notes with surprise that they still seem to be spurting blood, meaning their hearts haven't quite stopped yet.

The most marked thing about the bedroom is that it isn't configured as a bedroom at all. No bed, just chairs, couches, tables, and cabinets full of glasses and bottles of alcohol, though many are broken now. In the middle of the floor is a hole. But not the ragged ones blown by the drones. This one was deliberate and has a trap door and ladder. Or at least it used to have a ladder. It looks like there was an explosion below that broke the ladder and it looks like a few orks. Though these orks are wearing red, making them stand out from Monifa's crew, and they seem to have some of their own medics already working on their people. Monifa's crew seems still entirely primed for combat and another attack. Paul saw that these had also advanced, presumably checking out all the bedrooms and stopping around what cover they could find near the balcony, looking outward.

<< @Lenny: I would say, stay hidden and learn where they are headed. That might be helpful for us later on, to figure out who these guys are. >>

When she notices how badly hurt Bello is, Selina takes some extra effort to fight off the Drain, which would cause her physical harm as well.



"Sorry, no. But maybe Tubesnake has an idea. He knows the most about this kind of stuff."

<< @Tubensake: They want to fix the walls. Any ideas? >>

<<We'll talk construction later. I want to get a bead on these attackers, then save lives, then fix buildings. In that order.>>

He sends the FlySpy out through the nearest structural gap - even a leftover bullet hole would be adequate - and gets as much information as he can, while he can.

Lenny Replies back <<They'll be scanning automatically and may detect an itrusion. I'll send the Access ID, but hold on hacking in until we see if they pick up on the attempt.>>

Angel suddenly replies to the group. <<Wait what? What's going on?!?>> However a message with an Access ID gets her attention more than anything else on the channel.

Shoots a message <<Drek, they're onto me! Angel? Anybody?!?>>

Back inside (OOC: I'll give Paul credit for giving the flyspy commands before heading over to the other apartment) the Flyspy zips past Abeje and the other Orks on the balcony; they seem to be staring roughly directly down.

In the distance, probably still within range of longer weapons, are a pair of VTOLs making their way to the South. They might be trying to get over the water. If the pilot programs know where they're going and they have the fuel there isn't anything preventing them from going out of signal range and outside of city jurisdiction, if the Baltimore Police Union is even scrambling something to interact. This is a city building, but drones and choppers would probably have to start out from closer to the L.

Bello seems to have an idea and heads off to the master bedroom. A couple moments later he comes out with a stack of blankets, and, perhaps due to not finding anything else more to the purpose quickly, a box of pocket knives.

During his attempts at first aid, Bongo notices Bello's collection of materials. "Good idea, Bello. A blanket over a flying drone is as good as a net, as well as helping the injured be comfortable."

Willie pipes up. "You people have anything long range? I could take down one of those things with a sniper rifle."

Bongo puts two and two together. "Selina, your spirit could catch those drones through the astral. Is there anything she could do to bring them down?"

<< If we want to bring them down, I can try that. Outside of this astral mess here, I am a little more capable. But I would need someone to watch my body, while I am gone. >>

Willie is about to answer crudely, and bites his tongue (figuratively, of course). Huh. Self correction. What a new sensation. Instead, he replies,<< I'll keep an eye on you. Go get'em.>> He moves to be beside Selina.

<< It will be as if I am sleeping, or like a hacker in virtual space, I guess. Don't move my body around, I need to find my way back here. Thank you! >>

Selina makes sure, she has the proper direction the drones are flying towards, and sits down in a room, that seems safe enough for the time being, leaning against a sturdy wall, before projecting into the astral.

She takes a peek outside and zips off quickly, when it looks clear. She does not want to agitate the other spirit that is guarding the place. On her way towards the drones, she calls one of her bound spirits to her side. And once she is in an area without background count, she will also summon another spirit.

Willie tears off to get back to Selina, sparing Monifa's crew the awkward silence from nobody wanting to give up their rifle, despite him perhaps having a case where Monifa would order them to (OOC: he might roll to pick up on that subtle social queue).

Things are getting a little crowded with Bongo working with the fallen back the way they came, so Willie tears off the other way, his feet again ringing on the thin metal to get back to Selina. As he gets closer, he sees that Bello is wasting no time putting the blankets up over the holes, maybe preventing drones from flying through, but definitely blocking the sight lines from the maintenance tower cameras. Willie, having now completed a full circuit of the 100th floor promenade, brushes aside the makeshift blanket, held in place with the pocketknives Bello is shoving into place.


It's been a very short time, but VTOLs can move. It doesn't take long before they start using the buildings to the South for a measure of cover as they seem to race for Pigtown. The flyspy can't come close to keeping up, but Paul thinks he has their bearing.

Selina nestles in near the rest of her crew by the freezers, which so far has proven a pretty safe space despite bullets and grenades, and slides into the astral.

As she starts to fly past the astral forms of Abeje and the two other Orks that ran in, the Astral outside gives her pause.

It's changed she'd looked it over carefully before. All the way around the sides of the building the taint of the background count had been fairly uniform, not perfectly, but like the mist of coming off a jar full of dry ice. Now there are a bunch of disturbances further out, a bit more like the bursts from flak in a WWII movie. She suspects there was a lot of action in the astral, which might explain why the spirit that attacked the helicopter didn't seem to take out any of these drones. While she doesn't perceive any threats, her field of view is fairly limited as she's still back in the astral shadows of the building. There's also quite the view from the 100th floor. There's the general clutter of the astral from the city and all the buildings and teeming thousands of people, plus some astral forms moving back and forth in the distance, which isn't atypical. There might be more of both out staring at the moment, since there was quite the commotion in the physical world, and perhaps also the astral. For all Selina knows one of those rubberneckers isn't just a rubbernecker, someone could be hiding in the clutter, or hovering a few feet above the window.

(OOC: If Bongo wants he can roll again to stabilize the Ork he's having a hard time with.)

Proceeding a bit more carefully, keeping in the shadows of buildings while heading into the direction the drones have taken and that Paul thinks they are going, Selina calls her other bound spirit to her side, just in case, and keeps a look out for any astral forms protecting the drones, if she manages to catch up to them.

Bongo sees that his attempt on the current wounded ganger had not gone well. The medkit doesn't need restocking yet, so he gives the wounded man another try.



This time the man's vitals seem to stabilize. "Good." Bongo looks to see if anyone else nearby can use help.

Paul records the flightpath, instructs the FlySpy to land on the Range Rover so that it can be a passive viewer from its roof, and then gets up to work on saving people. He's no master surgeon, but he sure can stop bleeding holes quickly.

Selina has to fly rather blind. She can't just pop into the earth and advance, as it resists passage, but she can zip low along streets and through buildings. Fortunately for her, this doesn't appear to be the kind of neighborhood where doing that leads you to smack into wards or spirits on guard duty. Eventually, she pokes her head through a roof to look around. While auras become vibrant in the astral, drones don't, and while in the astral you can't actually check paint jobs and the like.

Still, there can only be so many of these things around and it hasn't been twelve seconds since the Eyespy saw them start using buildings for cover. She spots what looks like the right kind of shadow flying in the right sort of direction. Just one, though, and without an obvious escort.

(OOC: I'm tracking drone time a bit more, but Paul could make a triage and stabilization tests for the two behind the couch in the other apartment that don't seem entirely dead mentioned earlier).

Bongo finds another pair have shown up with medkits now, which might well have been too late for the two Bongo worked on. The two Bongo worked on are stable, but still in really bad shape, just not the dying in a matter of seconds shape. There are another half dozen in the area with varying levels of injury, a couple of them are even standing, but leaking blood.

Attacking the drone, if she cannot be certain it is the right one, does not seem like the greatest of ideas. Therefore, Selina settles with following it for now. Maybe that will give them some input into who is behind the attacks.

Bongo moves to another injured person, the one that looks in the worst shape among those he can see, and does what he can.

Willie stands beside Selina's slumped body and marvels at the trust she displays. In Willie's past, dropping your guard like that was suicide. What's more, she is placing her trust in him, the jumped up street thug. Here, in the midst of all this mayhem, a feeling blooms deep in his chest, rising through his throat to his eyes. He has to blink. No one has ever depended on him the way these teammates do.

Damned if he will betray that trust. Ever.

Since Lenny has been hacking in AR he's been able to at least mostly listen in to everything going on around him, even though he's been pretty distracted. But now he yells out "Drek. Hacking in AR, SUCKS! I can't even spoof the thing with the stupid rigger jumped in. "

He looks over at Selina. "Guess it's team nap time. Hope Angel catches the new access code and I get back in and show them what I can do when I'm not moving like...meaty molasses. "

Lenny doesn't have time to straighten out his similes and he then slumps down against a wall, near, but not touching, Selina. As he starts doing matrix actions he thinks to the group. <<It'd be easier to just screw up the drone and crash it. We're screwing around while trying to get a trace going they don't notice. They could drop the thing too anytime.>>

As Bongo works on the downed Ork he does what he can and what the medkit tells him to do, at least its well equipped. Soon the wounds are all plugged and patched, with some synthetic drugs and meds added. But his breathing still isn't good. But Bongo is pretty sure they'll get better on their own at this point, after a very long rest.

Down below the trapdoor Paul can hear someone exclaim "Fucking 100th floor. Bringing their drek down here. They best pay for this. "

Paul's ears perk up, and settles himself more conveniently while working so as to maximise his chances of picking up any more angry rantings. He doesn't bother recording anything, but the political lie of the land might be very valuable to pick apart with the team once the bleeding has stopped.

To Lenny he adds: <<Better than a tortoise, chummer. Or did you wanna go running after the drones yourself?>>

After not very many seconds, suddenly Lenny's shoot open and he gasps. "Oh geez that sucks. Ow Ow Ow." He pulls his helmet off and seems like he might get sick, but he seems to get it together and waves at anyone around. "I'm fine, I'm fine, I was just in cold sim. And I KICKED THAT ICs ASS! I was giving their spider a touch time too. I think they shut down the whole node. "

He pauses a moment "Angel says she's fine, nobody detected her, they disconnected her too."

He thinks a moment "Maybe that means they crashed the drone? Well, more of them were piling in, they could have given the pilot a destination and shut down all connections. Or maybe they landed the thing and went for a reboot? "

He seems to gather himself and switches to matrix communication with the team <<Angel managed a trace, and she thinks between something funky she did with her stealth program and me distracting everybody in the node that they weren't aware. Tracing doesn't give an exact location though, like a room number. We'd really be able to spoof any of their drones that are still around. And we know what building they're in. If they don't permanently scramble their Access IDs we'll find them if they pop up again. >>


Down by the trapdoor. Paul can overhear some general bellyaching along with "They don't make this right. We can make it right yeah?" He gets some grunts in accent.

Paul is also noticing that the orks generally don't try and hide where they are as they move. They have a certain stompy and vocal way, so maybe they have no idea he's there down below. Or maybe they want the orks in the apartment out on the balcony to hear...or they don't care.

Bongo catches wind of the disturbance down below. Like they need a local gang to be making trouble at this point, right? He moves over to beside Tubesnake and stands ready. No knives. Just ready to talk down the troublemakers.

Selina stays on the drone for the time being. Not entirely certain, it is the right one, she follows it astrally, hoping to figure out where it is headed.

(OOC: A shout out for Paul for sharing things on comms. Part of the reason I have coms as one of the requirements is player's don't do well being out of the loop. Simplifies who could hear what from where as well. One Bongo moves he'd be with Paul in the master bedroom turned living room with trap door in one apartment, while Lenny and Selina are lying on the ground next to Willie and presumably Paul's ground traveling drones...and some thawing corpses from just before all this. Paul would have a chance for tried and stabilization rolls before Bongo would get there.)

Watching the drone, Selina notices that it alters its path somewhat but still cuts across the Patapsco river, its path leads it to a cemetery. Selina can't read the signs, but she'd recognize it, and could look it up on a map from her meat body. (OOC: Mount cavalry cemetery)

From above, the area looks pretty empty, overgrown with trees and vegetation. The drone comes to a halt over a patch of trees, or what were trees before vines choked them out. With its engines powered down the drone drops, getting caught up in the branches and vines. dangling in the air a good twenty feet from the ground.

The area doesn't seem to have much activity, but is still a place of meaning and has a blend of background counts, but mostly one as nature attempts to reclaim the land.

(OOC: Sorry, just a short reply, I need to get to bed).

Bongo tries to hear what might be being said down below.

There's some general grumbling, then one of the orks below adds. "They act like they're the shit and protect this whole thing, but it's just that shit rolls downhill onto us. I bet they pissed someone off, and instead of squaring up their guys just jump down here like a bitch. If we're doing the protecting, we oughta be in charge. "

In the room with the freezers, Lenny messages the group. <<Angel and I can see what we can find in the building we traced their wireless to. Think they're uptown or downtown types? Anyway much as I don't want another wave of drones coming, getting the real payday means finding Brewster's missing runner. The only lead for that was on a floor nowhere near all this. But we might be able to cook something up. Like Tubesnake is the only one who got codes for missing gear off those guys. We could probably search up where it actually went, or say it's linked to something suspicious, where we want to go. I guess pick something you could reasonably talk through and we can make it seem true. >>

Bongo listens to the grumbling below and messages the team. <<Some folks in the nearby lower levels are getting upset with the goings on up here. There may be trouble coming from them, too.>>

Willie replies, <<Let 'em complain. They ain't taken control yet, they won't with us here.>>