Bongo raises his hands in a calming gesture. "I don't want to take or keep any of those things, but it might be useful if our hacker could check out those trodes to see if anything was recorded on them.

"You know of anybody who got a hold of one of those flowers?"

Cameron again looks at Bongo a little suspiciously. "If you had a real hacker, they should be able to read anything they want off my comlink with just me standing here. Or maybe looking around to be useful. "

At that he starts warily looking around the rest of the apartment. The other two Orks watch Bongo.

"If I didn't care about using you without your permission, I would do that. I'm asking you after having paid you. Simple courtesy between co-workers, no?"

Bongo shrugs his shoulders up and puts his arms out to the side, palms up.

"How would we be able to work together some other time if I just poked around your business without your permission?"

Willie considers Selina's next move. Probably, nothing will happen, but if one of these jazzed up/BTLed down junkies were to get violent, Willie's weapons as they are would be useless. Killing someone here would be counterproductive. He'd have to duke it out.

Note to self: get some gel rounds.

(Ooc : short since you might be active.)

With a smile a that's a step less suspicious and more playful he says "Ok, I give you permission to your hacker to poke around in the comlink. "
He looks a little concerned then and says.


"Just don't mess anything up permanently, and leave the cash alone.."

"Let's hope so..."

Selina looks around for some human woman to talk to. She heads over to the group, saying: "Living the life. You seem to be pretty unfazed here from all the trouble going on upstairs. Good for you!"

"Done."

Bongo messages Lenny. <<Guy here by the name of Cameron has 'trodes he took off one of the flower victims. Might have info. Here is the link. See what you can find. Cameron wants you to leave the cash alone and don't mess anything up. Yeah. I know.>>

Since Selena looks enough like a human for people to imagine she is one in her hoodie nobody is surprised when she goes over by some humans.

They seem chill enough with her arrival. Though they seemed pretty chill before her arrival. In response to her question she gets a couple people saying, "What's going on up in 100?" Most of them don't seem to actually care. Selina notices one of the men seems to have an ulcer from lying on his side too much, though he's probably in his fifties at a guess.

The woman Selena directly addressed is younger and seems to be taking more of an interest than the others. "Are they getting up to some gang banging? Up there? Sometimes I wonder if the excitement would be worth it. But I wouldn't be welcomed up there. I guess we sort of have some gangs here. But nobody here has anything worth taking, so they have to go cause trouble on other floors. Um . It would be nice if you stuck around. But if you have nice things, don't let anybody know, or there could be trouble. Just free yourself of all that at relax. Um. Anyway what is the news, you can tell me about it."

She looks at Selina hopefully.

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

Lenny feels reasonably safe next to Willie, so he replies <<Alright, just shoot me a comcode or something to get at them.>>

(OOC: Presuming bongo shares the contact info he got from Cameron.)

Lenny takes a little while, he's not eager to taste more dumpshock or to zonk out here, though that would certainly fit the vibe, so he's hacking in AR.

Still, it doesn't take too long for him to reply back to Bongo.

<<Hey, so I got into the comlink. Looks like the memory isn't wiped. Based on timestamps on the pics and stuff Lana shared, I went hunting near to the time they probably died. What I found were some searches for prices of antique gear. Looks like he was trying to price a "Wallacher combat axe with thrusting point" and a "Novatech Sandman simsense deck." Those were probably twenty and ten years old. I don't think I like the idea of that making something antique, but Orks grow up fast. He took a pic of the axe. >>

Lenny shoots the team the pic, Bongo could tell they'd laid in on the floor in the large room in the apartment after a little wandering around and looking at the floor.

(OOC: Folks could roll memory related things or weapon knowledge skills if they'd like)

Paul, having put away all his goodies and overhauled his drones, sets back up to head out. He picks a convenient and quiet (insofar possible) nook or niche in which to park, but the target of investigation is where those drone operators had been.

Assuming that he gets there unmolested, he parks and starts quietly with a FlySpy, looking for the layout, and of course the presence of any remaining personnel or equipment that is lying around or parked around the facility.

As Paul drives into the area, he can tell he's getting into a rough part of town. But it's his sort of rough. Sure, there are still gangsters, but they're the sort one might recognize from a union meeting. It's a problem if they want something to fall off the back of a shipment, but you can work with them. Besides that, there's a fair chance Paul might recognize a few faces if he walked over to Fantasies Nightclub. Maybe he should warn some of the guys about the ghouls in the nearby forest. Best not to get kicked out of there drunk.

This area got built up fast as shipping picked up in Baltimore, but it was smaller enterprising corporations on this side of the Patapsco as opposed to the Megas consolidating sections of turf closer to downtown.

The construction is dated and put in fast. Ferrocrete with old cyber terminals on the sides. It still follows the uptown/downtown pattern sometimes. More relevant to the specific building Paul is interested in is that even the "uptown" part isn't corporate exclusive or very expensive from a quick matrix search. Linde apartments are open to all, and feature very open floorplans. Essentially, you get a large square with a bathroom or two and the amenities of a kitchen and laundry room along a wall. Then you can have them put in modular walls to suit your needs, with a few suggested designs. Their advertising AROs mention on site security. Paul isn't seeing anything like the armed guards in the elevators like at the Tourmaline. There wouldn't be nearly as many people either in the seven residential stories of a more normal sized building.

Instead of the "downtown" part being residential, it's taken up by Linde Welding Gas & Equipment Center, which has expanded to include a lot of vehicle and industrial repair. This close to the water they didn't seem to want to dig down for parking, so there are a couple of parking garage levels open to the air between the Equipment Center and the residential portion, which probably also helps a lot with noise.

Nothing obviously indicates where the other team might be, if they're even here. They could have just parked next to the building in a van like Paul is and then driven away.

Selina sits down near the woman. She wonders who or what caused these people to be so... lethargic. It does have the feel of some drug or chip. She also wonders what the hopeful glances might mean. Is she just eager for some "excitement".

She shakes her head. "Nice things? Nah, only the bosses got those, I guess. Not much in terms of news, but surely you have heard the fighting? It hasn't been that long. Oh, and something with flowers. What was that again. Yeah, they found some bodies and there were some weird flowers. Speaking of flowers... you can't tell me you guys aren't high or something. What's with all the lying around and relaxing? Your body needs to move, otherwise you cannot even get up anymore at some point, when your muscles are completely gone."


In the meantime, Fiona has materialized in her cat form somewhere out of sight and slowly stalks around the corner.

"Oh, look. What a nice kitty! She's probably just looking for some food. Here, kitty, kitty." Selina brushes her fingers over the floor, to make some noises to attract the cat.

Fiona rolls her astral eyes and comes closer, all curious like a real cat.

The lady seems happy to have Selina talking with her.

She leaned back against an old large pillow and said, "I guess you're new here. It's not really that. I mean, people will take what drugs or chips they can get like that nice lady was just sharing. If they can't they just trode up with whatever is free. Long as they have some trodes or something. Maybe play games on an old comlink or game thing with a screen. Whatever."

She blinks under the effects of Lana's drugs, but then continues.

"As folks say, this floor is where you head to lie down and rot. See the gangbangers decided that the higher the floor number the better you were, so they head up that way right? And then the lower floors are full of people clinging to the idea that they're going to make things better. Dreams of moving out and drek."

She says that a little wistfully and holds out her hands like she's pantomiming grabbing a dream. Then she continues, "Because, like, the higher up you are the longer it takes to use the elevator, yeah? Even this high it really sucks. So they all fight for place down there. Here I just get to lay around, wander over for food now and then, and just listen to the drama and gunshots coming form other floors. "

She looks at Selina again, worried. "I didn't mean to scare you with that whole thing about not letting on that you have any nice stuff if you have nice stuff. I mean, it seems like I'd be vulnerable out here, right? But, like, there are some Orks with family around that don't take kindly to trouble. And we don't have much, and we're out here with other people. So it isn't worth it. If people here want to make trouble, they go to a different floor for it. Like, why not go somewhere with more stuff and less trouble? So you can stay here, it's nice. We could talk."

Selina had asked a number of questions and the lady seems to be having trouble keeping track of all of them. But she manages to remember one of the threads. "I think there was some weird thing with flowers. That probably had something to do with guys causing trouble on other floors. Like it was only once here, and probably happens all the time elsewhere. "

While there were a lot of people around, there aren't any other pets, and Fiona makes quite a scene. There's a lot of oooing and pspspspsps going on. Smiles creeping onto weary faces. It seems only their distaste at getting up is keeping Fiona from getting swarmed, but most people seem eager to pet the kitty.

All this touchy-feely crap Selina is getting into is not to Willie's taste. Drek, even her cat is in on it. Lenny looks to be off in la-la land doing his Matrix wizzing. Willie would love to go get a beer somewhere, but both of his buddies are not in the most perceptive state.

He decides to go to the front door and scan around out in the hallway for anything out of the ordinary.

Since it looks like there isn't a whole lot to learn here, Selina will talk a bit more with the woman and Fiona will be a nice cat for a while, but eventually, they will take their leave. There are a lot more places to visit, and at least there was a little hint that the spirit they are looking for might be interested in keeping the peace around here in the building, or some part of it, anyways. Probably somewhere below, where the gangs are not that present.

<< The people here are weird. They seem to have resigned and just lie around and wait for the inevitable end or something like that. >>

(OOC: Just making sure that pbangarth didn't miss the info for Bongo from Lenny above. Willie doesn't see anything that seems out of the ordinary....though he might not with one hit. The most unusual thing is the cat amusing the group in the large room in the corner. The woman will eagerly talk with Selina about anything, but she doesn't seem to know anything else potentially relevant. As she didn't personally know the guys that got "flowered").

Bongo tries to recall whether a Wallacher combat axe and a Novatech simsense deck had any relationship a few years back. Some kind of simsense blockbuster? He has no idea whether this is a clue or not, but he digs deep.

As Bongo stares at the combat axe, eventually an image flashes in his memory. The picture Brewster had shared when they were first discussing the run.

He pulls the image fully into his mind. There is the spirit they're looking for, holding up a large dazed looking troll in obvious black body armor with an array of horns growing out of his head that almost makes it look like he has a mane. There's a bit a metal sticking up over his shoulder in the photo and a bit of a handle sticking out by his side. Bongo becomes increasingly sure it's this Wallacher. Maybe not in a proper axe holder, it's sitting a little awkwardly like someone just stuck it through a hole in his backpack or something. It's was a 2D photo from what was probably an older camera. Still, even old cameras had good resolution and the axe has some damage and pitting. It must have slammed into some hard stuff, maybe gotten splashed by acid. Bongo isn't so sure about all that. (OOC: At least I don't recall him having relevant B/R knowledge skills. )

But what he convinces himself of is that the troll's axe was, prior to those guys getting killed, laying on the floor a few yards from where Bongo is standing based on some stains on the floor that appeared in the picture.

Lenny chirps in his ear, <<I poked around myself on that simsense deck. It'd have been worth thousands new. But it's been out of circulations for a while. Some will pay for a bit of nostalgia. I guess there isn't any proof in the comlink that those guys actually had one. But it seems weird for guys to start looking into random ten year old hardware. I can't scan for one as those old things aren't wired for the modern wireless matrix. >>

Nobody in the pictures obviously has a simdeck, but why wear one? The troll had a metal bump on the side of his head, that could easily be a datajack.

Bongo perks up at the info Lenny gives him. "Listen, Cameron. There's some searches on this 'link about a battle axe and a simsense deck your friend might have been trying to unload. You know if those are still around? Not 'cause I want them or to sell them, but they might be a source of information about what is going on here. My team might be able to read something off of them for information.

"That would be valuable to us."

Cameron actually laughs out loud. A bellowing noise as he seems to release the tension that had been building around his comlink and this while operation.

He friends join in.

Eventually Cameron calms himself. "Sorry Chummer. Once people figured out the place was open to looting you didn't have all too long to get stuff. Now all you're gonna find is some used underwear. "

His smaller friend said, "Maybe he means somebody grabbed 'em first, fucked off quick, and just shut up about it afterwards."

Cameron scratched the back of his head. "I dunno. People don't advertise they're good mugging, sure. But a friggin Neil the Orc Barbarian looking Battle axe? Can't stuff that in a pocket. I was in pretty early when they figured out the door was open and started pulling in, or I wouldn't have the link. If anybody got in way earlier all sneaky they'd have grabbed up all the other good drek. Anyway I didn't hear nothing bout no battle axe. You guys?"

His friends shake their heads.

Bongo's shoulders sag a bit. This could have been a break. "Well, if you were to ask around and find a connection, that would be worth something, too. Alternatively," he scratches his chin, "if someone from here were to try to find a fence or a pawn shop to take that kind of material, you guys have a clue about where that might be?"

While Cameron mulls that suggestion over, Bongo shares with the team. <<Looks like one of the guys found dead was looking into prices for a battle axe and simsense deck. The axe looks just like one in an image in which the spirit in question is dealing with a troll with such an axe. Tryiing to track down where the items might have gone. If we can lay hands on them, we might be able to learn something.>>

There wasn't much else to do with the folks on the current floor. Bongo, however, seems to have found something more promising.

<< Good work! That could actually get us somewhere... Down here, folks are not exactly doing much, as I mentioned before. I can also ask Lana about possible places to pawn things. >>

Looking for Lana, Selina will do just that... ask her about places where one could get some money for stuff they found. Like electronics or weapons or the likes.

Cameron says, "Well, if it was something small, I'd want to trade it with somebody for something. A little bigger, and the gangs are who you go to. The main biz here is turning the scraps government nuyen into drugs and chips. But if folks can lay hands on something the gangs will take it. Wouldn't give 'em anything that wasn't drek though, 'cause they're gonna give you a drek price. Folks in the mid floors get picked on some, and we don't have strong local muscle, so if you had something really whiz, there isn't a whole lot to keep someone from just taking it if you start fussin' over the price.

But the elevators work. Just post the drek on some list or answer an ad; if it's not like a machinegun how they know it wasn't just yours and all legal to sell? "

Cameron looks thoughtful and decides he ought to appear useful. "Of course I can ask around. People remember weird stuff. Oh! I can tell you for sure it wasn't, like, theirs. We'd hung out and I'd know if they had a big ol' axe! You know they kinda were about as much of a gang as we had at the time. So I guess they'd have to go up a few floors to make a deal."

Lana replies by making a shushing noise. She looks around nervously, but fortunately the cat is still distracting people. "Careful talking about stuff like that! If word gets around you have nice stuff, well, it isn't good. Probably better to just take it to one of the pawn shops on the first floor. Now they might not offer much. But it isn't scary, and they can take a bunch of items and pay in cash. Other people take things to gangs. But gangs like to just take stuff, and it's scary, but gangs will just give you drugs. Going to the pawn shop is like a middle man you know? But if you have a bunch of things, you can hide money if you're clever. Stuff is hard to hide for long and if you got a lot of drugs and chips from a gang, or didn't sell because they didn't offer enough, than word could get around.

Our gangs didn't used to steal from us on the same floor. But they'd go to other floors, and other floors gangs will try and rough people up here. Friends can help, but only so much.

The new gangers are local, but people say they get lazy and will bother folks on their own floor! "

She looks a little worried about that last statement. "But this is still a good floor. We don't have the drama you know? "

Lenny had been wondering about what Bongo had said. It seemed like the axe being in the same picture as the spirit they're looking for ought to mean....something.

He wasn't sure what so he continued poking around in the comlink around those pictures, looking at the metadata. He replied to the team.

<<Hey. I don't think they had that axe very long. People use their comlinks all the time. Stupid little games, porn, music, whatever. They took the picture, started doing searches, and then nothing. No logins, no refreshes, until like a day later. I guess the previous owner hadn't password protected his comlink so the current owner just logged in. He put a password on, and I can see that in the logs. After that, he's gotten to using it all the time too. >>

Selina replies with the main takeaway of her findings and to what Lenny has figured out.

<< Okay, there seems to be a pawn shop down on the first floor, where you can exchange things for money without getting robbed, which often happens if you try the gangs. Maybe that is worth a try? Anyways, can we make some sort of time table what happened when? What day did the commlink stop doing things? How long ago was that? >>

Paul cruises around the blook a couple of times, as if looking for favourable parking, before settling on a spot across the street from the building, as if hoping to stroll into the welding supply shop. In fact, come to think of it, maybe that's a good plan. He'll mentally file that option for later.

His first priority is to take a deeper look at things - those AROs that discuss on-site security? It would be great to know if it were active or passive. Are they talking about pinhole cameras, or hunter-killer drones? Something should be visible to reflect what's on tap.

Also, while he's hanging out, figuring out what to do next, it would be great to watch for current tenant activity for a while. For example, a welding shop would be a great place to have a drone construction collective in the back.

Patience, patience.

This all sat awkwardly with Lenny, but he first responded to the direct request after checking a few timestamps.

<<So the pics we started with have the flower incidents 11 days ago for the room we made our own on 52, and here on floor 49 it was 27 days ago. However, I think those guys on 52 actually got geeked nearly a day earlier than when the pictures of them lying out on the promenade were taken. Again, that's because his comlink goes quiet after excitedly searching for prices and taking a picture of the Wallacher. Maybe they'd just been lying there dead overnight until somebody figured out the door wasn't locked? >>

Lenny tended to think of things in matrix terms, so rooting around in Cameron's comlink gave him an idea. <<Hey Selena? While you're looking for pawned items or whatever, it seems like these people don't give up bodies with their pockets full. Maybe there are some links wandering around the floor. Maybe with more information. Some of these folks might know who got them? Or maybe some better intel on the guys. The case is a little colder on this floor, but still.>>

He didn't even briefly think of asking around himself.

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

Paul's fast arrival had managed to get the drone out of the woods before it got dark. But after all the fiddling it was getting late. There's still a light on in the main room for the Welding store, but the sign and AROs say closed. The business seems to have spread to own the whole bottom level of the uptown style building. Checking the AROs it looks like they rent out space for people to work on various projects and suggest subcontractors for repair work for vehicles, drones, or machinery on site. Maybe noisy for a residential building, but a few garage levels open to the air seem to provide a little sound protection. It's pretty rough as far as uptown structures go through.

The information on the building is vague about the security. Camera's and some onsite presence. Buildings are often a little sketchy about that. Still, hunter killer drones seem a little upscale for here. Though basic security drones are pretty cheap. Since this isn't affiliated with a megacorp it doesn't have externality to hide behind. So that would limit things too.

Parked where he is, on the industrial/dock side of the building. It would be a bit of pain to have a lot of drone activity, as the buildings are fairly close and you have some old above ground power and data lines snaking around. The opposite side, closer to the ghoul also had a gates to get in and of the welding companies extended working areas. But there isn't an uptown superstructure on the businesses there, so you could get to the sky pretty easy.

<<As I read this, folks, I'm guessing that they probably rented one of the bays here as a staging ground for their work, but the good news is that they have security systems and things that may have revealed more about who they are, or some kind of record. This is just my initial assessment, but I reckon it matches all the facts here. Of course, a money trail too, because I doubt that they just showed up with no prior arrangement.>>

Angel excitedly gets on the comes < Does that mean you need me? Like there's an access ID for a camera or something? You aren't even in the building right? So it isn't so scary and I can find what you need. I'm all rested up from earlier. <>

Looking around, there might be some hidden cameras, but there are also some rather visible oversized ones meant to deter...or they're just really old. Either way, Paul has the skills to sniff out the hidden nodes. Mostly it's a matter of picking views, or having Angel try to get into a more central security node.

Bongo picks up on something Cameron said, after Lenny's message opens his perspective. "Listen, Cameron, you know of any other commlinks that got ... repurposed after the bodies were found? There might be more info floating around in one or more of those."

Bongo messages the group. <<I'll check around here to see if any other commlinks show up that we can check. If I find any, I'll post you Lenny so you can scan them. In the meantime, any chance there are people around you, Lenny, who might have repurposed a commlink from a cadaver?>>

Willie chimes in. <<If you go to a pawn shop, Selina, I'll go with you.>>

Cameron scratched his head, "Right... Remember when I said if it was something small, I'd want to trade it with somebody for something, and if not that the gangs? Well, I did manage to get to those too. This was the only one without a passcode on it. So I kept it. I traded my old one with a guy down the hall cause I had the password, but I had to trade the other two with some gangers on 51..for the usual. They might have had to wipe them to get 'em working without passcodes. The guys in here didn't have a huge social network. Maybe your hacker friend can just hunt 'em down through data on this one? On the sims hackers are cool and can do stuff like that."


Lenny, however, was not feeling cool. Instead, he was getting that pit in his stomach like he did at work, and, surprisingly, for the same reason. He felt like people were about to ask him to do stuff he wasn't able to really do. Well, he supposed it had happened already. Bongo had asked about finding specific commlinks randomly among the crowd. Well, maybe he could try something there. These people seemed a little extra easy to grab stuff form. Maybe there weren't so many on the floor? That was still going to take a while, and they probably weren't named "Corpse comlink" or something convenient like that.

No, the gut-wrenching bit was the next part, when they brought him an simdeck older than a bunch of the Ork gangers here and a combat axe to match and asked him to figure something out. Stuff you actually had to connect to physically, which means no wireless info. And with that nothingburger he'd be expected to what, find a spirit? This was the sort of BS that he got saddled with all the time, and drove him to become a Shadowrunner.

He allowed himself to conveniently forget he did it in hopes of impressing a girl. The oppressed worker backstory was sounding a whole lot better.

That calmed him down just a bit. Enough that he could rationalize that maybe somebody took a photo of something that would clue them into where something was. Still, all this didn't sit right. Maybe he could get some of the pressure off by sharing it with the team. That's what teams are for right? Time to drop some questions like he did in meetings where he was trying to get the pressure off.

So he opened a com and subvocalized.

<<Hey. That axe was from the run right? The one that went bad but somehow Brewster is still trying to sort out? And the axe was on the troll that the spirit was holding? But is this the kind of place a spirit would want to just hang out? I'm not getting "flower" vibes here. They don't need food packed delivery right? Why would that axe be here, and why with an old simdeck? Were they hidden? This doesn't seem like a good place to hide anything. You can't exactly bury it?

And we're figuring the spirit killed those guys right? With the flower thing? Seems more likely the flower thing isn't a coincidence if the axe is here. Can spirits haul stuff into the astral? Maybe they took the axe? Maybe the simdeck too? But why would they want a simdeck? Can spirits use a simdeck?

Is the axe why the spirit geeked those guys? I wonder why it geeked those other guys on the other floor? >>

That was all the questions Lenny could come up with off the top of his head, but that was enough to make him smile. That ought to adjust some expectations, or keep them busy. Though they actually needed to complete this run.

<< Pawn shop is on the first floor. Quite a long way down. If we go there, we should definitely stick together. >> Selina replies to Bongo.

As for Lenny. He does bring up some good points. Why is that spirit even here?

<< Some good points there, Lenny. I don't think the spirit can just bring physical items into the astral world. That's not how that works. Well, usually. But why is that spirit even here? I cannot say. Maybe the spirit is protecting someone or something. Hmm... what about that shaman that was sending the spirit to attack that helicopter and is also keeping some astral patrols up? They told us it is best to stay away from that one, but maybe we could learn something there. >>

Lenny listened and couldn't help replying. This was sometimes his downfall. After dropping a bunch of questions, usually the best move in a corporate meeting was to try and fade into the background as others went back and forth.

But instead he said <<Well, you could ask about her with that magic lady from earlier. Lisa I think? Her number should be someone in all those group messages. Lisa said her counterpart went way back with Monifa, but maybe they would have noticed some spirits moving around here? Maybe on those dates if not other times. We aren't supposed to hint about our other job though. So be careful.>>

(OOC; gotta run)

Bongo considers. <<Lenny, see if you can trace other commlinks from the one you are connected to now. Selina, you are right. We should check out the pawn shop together. You want to come back down here and collect me?>>

To Cameron he says, "OK. I think my team will check out the pawn shop down on the first floor. See if we can learn something there. If you can check around on this floor for anyone who ws around then, and just ask if they know something, that would be useful. I'll be back."

Bongo goes to near the elevator doors, waiting for Selina and Willie.

As they ride down the elevator, Willie is glad to leave the stoners behind. He is a survivor. Wilting your brain is contra-survivalist thinking. Although ... he has been known to go on a good bender if the booze is good. Something to think about, now that he has seen up close what too much of a good thing can do.

<< Yeah, sure, we could ask Lisa about it. But as you say, this other part should not be too obvious. Anyways, we will check out that pawn shop first. Maybe later. >>

Selina heads down the elevator together with Willie, to get Bongo, so they can head further down together.

Paul does a casual drive around the vicinity of the building, sniffing the electronic waves as he goes. He doesn't detect the specific commlinks they traced, but it's easy enough to change an Access ID if it wasn't spoofed in the first place. Paul wouldn't be surprised it wasn't that easy.

Still, he sniffs up a bunch of signals. He sends them to Angel and adds notes indicating the sort of signals he thinks they are. Without hacking, one can't be sure. But some are probably cameras on the building or surrounding businesses. Others are probably electronics inside. He also provides a list of open nodes, since those at could, at the least, be a way into a network. And who knows, they might be useful.

Angel had thought that she might get a specific thing to hack into, but she realized there was no reason to expect that. Focusing, she managed to summon a friend, though not too strong a one, to help do some searching. She finds the data sprites can be better at spotting things than she is sometimes. She wishes they could just do the whole job for her, but then they get tired and stop working too soon and you have to summon more. It's exhausting. So she brings her new green cherub in glasses along with her over her shoulder as she starts hacking nodes while Paul keeps sending them in.

Without a clear target, she doesn't probe around for hidden networks. Mostly, she's looking for something "interesting" around the time of the attack; she couldn't explain to the matronly cherub exactly what that meant, but she did specify that suspicious wiping around that time counted as interesting.

Angel focused on getting in and letting the Cherub look around.

Eventually, it floated over with a green glowing scroll in its hands. It's a video from one of the security cameras. It shows a group of drones flying out of the parking garage between the welding shop and the uptown apartments.

She shoots the video to the group, forgetting for the moment that she should probably say something or add context.

But given that the fliers are the same models as those that attacked the building, and that they have underslung ground-based drones that also look familiar, it would be pretty clear to the group what they're looking at. Having circled the building, Paul would know the exact spot where they came out.

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

(OOC: Does Bongo get them out of the apartment or let them stay in there? In either case, Cameron agrees eagerly but noncommittally to ask around.)

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

Lenny doesn't want to get let behind, but he keeps hacking in AR while trying to not bump into anything. These comlinks are pretty low grade, so he manages that fairly well. He reports back. <<The good news is I can find the other dead Orks comlinks. The bad news is it looks like they wiped them. Probably full resets to get past the passwords or just to clear space. One of them seems to be on the other side of town, so probably sold, but one is still in the building. I guess with a gangster or something. I suppose I could try poking around links through their socials? >>

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

Her new companion on her pillows doesn't actually get up to chase Selina, but she does say, "Oh. it can be nice here. Please come back. It was nice to talk to someone new. It's really safer here than that all sounded like." She actually holds up a hand towards Selina.

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


As the group reaches the bottom floor, the rubble from the drones is still scattered on the floor. However, it's also been picked through. A couple of bodies had been dragged over by the doors to the central tower, though they haven't been picked up yet. Others with injuries are lined up outside a clinic in the northwest corner of the building.

Here on the ground level, instead of apartments, there are various businesses, most operating through steel-reinforced plastic windows. The pawn shop is easy enough to spot as wares as lined up against such a window instead of allowing patrons to peruse the items as in nicer places.

The owner is busy putting things up on some of the shelving in front of the large plastic "windows." Some suspiciously looking like parts from the engines of the downed drones. Though who would want them here isn't so clear.

(OOC: If you know what you're asking about, you could handle inquiries more abstractly unless you want to try and make some pawn shop contacts. )

Paul nods to himself, and settles down. Yup, definitely time to send in a FlySpy and just have a little snoop around the source of the drones. Very quiet, very subtle, peeking in from the outside first.

The flyspy has an easy view and access between the heavy support columns for the uptown portion of the structure.

It's getting to be late at night. So it only sees the reflected light from a single pair of headlights as some vehicle drives through the parking lot, and then those turn off presumably after the vehicle is parked.

Looking in where the drones came out, there isn't any movement, just parked vehicles. A few of them are vans, full size pickup trucks with cargo toppers, or SUVs that are big enough to transport one of the VTOL drones. The people that live here seem to be partial to such vehicles. This parking garage is only for the uptown residents. Paul had driven by the metal fold down garage doors in place to keep both vehicles and pedestrians out. Those seem to be the way entry into the uptown is controlled, as opposed to the much fancier external elevators with guards found back at the Tourmaline. The downtown welding shop has its own parking, also locked up at the moment, as the shop is closed.

Hacking the garage doors to the uptown garage might not be a problem for someone with the skills and software. Though it is always risky to stay somewhere you hacked for an extended period of time. If you were somehow detected and they blocked those doors, your only way out with a vehicle would be to ram the plasticrete guardrail and hope that it gives out and that your vehicle survives dropping a few stories.

<<Folks, I don't see much evidence that this was a pied-a-terre for them rather than a convenient staging point with VTOL access. Angel, if you can find any camera records in the computers around here you may be able to get video of our opposition, but I doubt that they left much here.>>

After being fooled earlier, Lenny was pretty sure that was just more French instead of cool urban runner slang, and a quick web search confirmed it.

Still, he'd been paid for matrix support, and, as much as he had to admit that he'd been completely unable to register Angel while in that drone, despite knowing she was there, she didn't seem to understand the range of what she could do.

He sent out. <<Even if they rolled out, we might be able to figure out what vehicle they're in, maybe get a license plate, maybe even some access IDs if we can get into some system they'd interacted with.>>

He leaned over towards Willie "Hey chummer. Could you watch my back while I space off in AR? I think your friends can handle a pawn shop owner for a little bit."

By the time he got back into the matrix, he found Angel had shared the annotated files that Paul had made. He directed Angel to get into some of the camera's facing those doors in and out, and shot Paul a message to check if they were the only way out of the garage.

Then he got into the data of the camera Angel had already hacked into and confirmed that the drone they hadn't been able to get returned to the garage and noted the time when it did so.

Fairly quickly, he got a message from Angel saying <<I got into the other camera's! I was careful to be sneaky. Also, I gave you security level access in the camera I let you into! Just to make things easy on you!>>

Lenny felt like this was a time you should praise a kid, so he sent back <<Great job! >> He hoped that was the correct amount of emojis for a kid these days.

Once he had the data for both cameras, he put together a little script to keep track of vehicles that his expensive edit AI thought could carry a drone and note when they arrived and left. He figured there would hardly be any.

He was very disappointed. People in this building seem to love those vehicles. He watched the number of potentials spike in the morning as vehicles went out. He groaned audibly in the real world, anticipating telling the team that it could be any one of thirty different vehicles. It then tracked them coming and going so the listed grew and shrunk. He let the software run right up to the present time. Being late at night people had started to come home, and he watched the list shrink. And then it shrank more.

And then it went down to zero.

Lenny blinked. Had he messed up? There were other scenarios he'd have to check for. The AI could have made errors in vehicle tracking. They could have done some kind of vehicle switch or return or some other sneaky Shadowrun thing. Maybe hacking all the cameras in the vicinity? But as far as his first test could tell, all the suitable vehicles that would have been around for the duration of the attack and that had subsequently left had all come back.

He pinged the team <<So there's lot of stuff runners might be able to do right? But as far as I can tell, they haven't left yet. >>

Willie sighs as yet again he is tasked with watching over some comatose wiz kid or matrix cowboy. But Lenny's message perks him up a bit. <<Still there? This could be a big break in Monifa's problem. I don't think one of us by himself should explore further. Should we regroup on Tubesnake and recce together?>>

Of course, he thinks to himself, if we solve her issue too soon, we have no excuse to be in the building looking into the bigger pay job.

Thinking things through is still a bit novel to Willie. He is getting to like it, though.

Lenny was thinking about the issue <<Angel was incredibly sneaky, and I kept them pretty distracted while they were pounding the bits out of me. Lenny paused there and chided himself. He wasn't going to impress any women, much less the object of his desire by becoming a Shadowrunner if he always kept up with the self-deprecating humor. (OOC: Forgot the name of the girl from Lenny's original backstory, but they wrote it, so I'm sticking with it).

But then he continued <<So they might not know they've been traced, so we should be careful not to tip them off. I can try to keep an eye on the doors in case a vehicle that could be them leaves, but there's always a chance I get made by patrolling ICE or a spider. You can't really win in cybercombat against someone who can pull the power cord. It could be they're sticking around in order to get their drone. Maybe they think late at night is safer. I suppose that would mean they don't know about the ghouls. I guess they also might just be cocky enough to run an operation out of their base of operations. >>

Selina was thinking about all the people in line at the clinic. She could probably help a bunch of them with her healing magic.

When Lenny and Angel do her Matrix scouting, her focus shifts to her commlink.

<< Either way, this is still the best lead we have so far. We can still decide when we present anything to Monifa, but if that offers a decent chance to figure out more, we should go for it. It is doubtful, anyways, that it ends there. These are just hired folks, and we are looking for the ones that hired them. >>

Heading out also has the added benefit of getting out of this astral mess here, at least for a while.

Willie starts getting excited when the prospect of some action is discussed. <<So, do we stake the place out and see if we can catch them?>>

Lenny replies <<I'm still going to try and search more broadly. But unless you want Paul to run down the next person that leaves for some late night clubbing, one of you needs to think of some way to figure out if that VTOL is somewhere in there and where.>>

Willie's shoulders sink a bit.

Paul hums to himself and thinks. Only way out of the building? The upper spaces would almost certainly, given the nature of the lower levels, not have subterranean access, but what about shafts from above that might accommodate a VTOL device? Excellent question.

He sends the FlySpy up high, not trying to land or get cute, just trying to gain enough altitude to survey the top before returning. While he thinks about that and gets his flier up, he also assesses the rest of the building for freight delivery options. After all, things can be shipped in on pallets or in boxes and be assembled on-site.

The one way out is actually a total of four doors. But they're all next to each other, so they are easily watched by the camera Lenny is in. Without flying inside, it's difficult to tell what the elevator situation is, but Paul's experience says his intuition is probably right. It would be unlikely for there to be a connection with the welding establishment, but there would be elevators in the garage capable of moving larger appliances and furniture. Probably a staircase too, but not necessarily.

Since all the drones were smaller than larger pieces of furniture, it probably wouldn't be much of a problem to move them in and out of the uptown apartments.

Flying to the top of the building, he could see that they had attempted to make the roof quite nice. It had a pool, a tiki bar, grills, garden boxes adorning the sides of the HVAC vents and the top of the elevator shafts, chalk outlines for shuffleboard, and lots of seating. The pool doesn't have any water in it at the moment. and the garden boxes could do with much love and a green thumb. The tiki bar sits empty. The only person up there is a human in jeans, flip lops, and a Intenational Longshoreman's Union T-shirt. A bottle of bourbon keeps him company on the lawn chair next to his.

There is a visible wire fence extending up from the walls that would prevent people are things from going over the edge. Just barely visible is a thin wire, almost monowire, mesh over the top. It doesn't block the view much, but it would keep birds away.

The Flyspy could get through, though. Larger drones wouldn't work so well, unless went to work with some wire cutters. If the other team has access to the apartment area, all that could explain why they launched from the parking garage.

Paul lands the FlySpy on the mesh, and lets it perch there, watching quietly, while he sits and has a think.

He doubts that this is their actual base. They almost certainly used it as a disposable operating base and then deserted it. However, the gentleman in the union shirt might know something. Time for him to do a little research.