<<Tuesday Morning - 08:30 - June 20, 2079 - SIS, Redmond>>

Tamarind's greatest fear finally had manifested: Three weeks had gone by and no new business had appeared - none - nada - zilch. Not even the usual cheatees and neighborhood lawsuits that usually kept the team running had found their way to SIS HQ.

Bobby had gone off for the fourth time in half a year to improve his astral form or whatever he called it. This time he hadn't taken anything with him not even an emergency commlink. Only a small vial of blood in the freezer with a note to Rachel: For emergency contact only!
His intended target was looking once again for Bonita, picking up the trail from three months ago. Not much of a chance, but potentially a payday - or an unmarked grave.


Boredom and a touch of anxiety were palpable in the office. With Bobby gone, it was Rachel's turn to (wo)man the front desk.

The ringing of the doorbell automatically opened a camera feed on the holo display. There stood a young, Hispanic looking woman with long black hair, wound in a complicated braid, wearing a kind of jumpsuit or motorbike protection gear. Rachel's trained eye immediately identified it as a cheap knockoff of an Urban Explorer body armor, pink and mint green, missing only the helmet that likely wouldn't fit over the braid.

The girl had an obvious datajack on the side of her skull and sported a very decorative tattoo along her jawline - looking at first glance like a very fine lined line of roses, but in the magnification revealed itself to be a collection of tiny skulls.

Her posture revealed urgency and fear. She looked over her shoulder, revealing a large XIII tattoo across the back of her neck, and ringed the bell once again, even though not more than a few seconds had passed since her first ring.

The second ring send an immediate alert to the rest of the team's commlinks, showing them the same feed.

Rachel was about to get up from her chair, when the second ring of the bell makes her jump up. There is a sense of urgency in the air.

"Yes, I am on my way!" she says, even though the woman in front of the door surely can't hear her.

A moment later, she opens said door.

"Hola! Welcome to SIS!" she says with a big smile. "How can we be of service."

Her own outfit is a bit more casual today. White jeans and tank top with black, chunky-heeled boots. Her nails are also black, hair open and flowing over her shoulders. There is a little silver pin in the left strap of her top, and she is wearing her orange sunglasses.

The young woman stepped inside and closed the door - almost forceful - while starting her introduction:

"You've got to help me. My boyfriend is missing - together with his whole crew. Sorry, I didn't know who else to turn to. I don't go lightly against the embargo, but Brent told me you got him back as well."

She had to take in some air after that desperate rant. Her accent was only slightly tinged away from the Seattle baseline - definitely not a native of Redmond though.

Rachel - as any with the ability - chanced a glance into the astral to see her aura. The girl was healthy, though she had some serious cyberware in her head and along her spine. The foreign tinge of cultured bioware ran along her arms and legs as well. She was nowhere near Mato's level, but probably only because her ware was a lot higher in grade. Her aura showed the same emotional turmoil that she displayed to Rachel.

Asked to slow down, tell her name and start from the beginning, the girl visibly pulled herself together with a long breath, showing that she had training to deal with stress, but apparently not enough yet.

"Alright, sorry, yes. My name is Felicitas Aglimente - stage name - you can't make it in the business as Maria Gonzales." Another deep breath. "So, you see, I just recently signed a contract with Ares Entertainment for their Combat Biker Show Urban Hunter. It's basically Urban War with a focus on bike chases. Huge market. My FP-views regularly go over three million and the TP-views on my back tripple that." There is genuine pride in that comment with the joy of someone still new in showbiz.

"Anyway, before I got signed I was part of that extreme sports club Downtown - you know, bungee jumping, free climbing, downhill racing, ghoul hunting, bike racing... that's where I met Diego - Trece to his friends. He was always big on Parkour and urban exploration. He and his friends have a totally rad channel going where they go through old buildings and tunnels, filming what they find while simsensing that whole experience to the viewers. It was his connection with Ares that landed me my break.

So now, he told me, he had found something really crazy and was preparing an expedition, that it would be his big break and my manager would stop trying to break us up after that.
But now he has vanished completely and it's been over two days and no-one has heard from him or his crew. I've been at his place and it might have been ransacked - though I can't be sure. He was never particularly tidy with his stuff. Even worse, his feed numbers are close to collapsing without new content.

You have to help me find them. Please."

Tamarind was in the garage, giving a little TLC to the team's vehicles, when the AR window showing the front door popped up. No doubt Rachel could handle things, but all the same with a mental flick she launched Uncle and the Aunties into the air and the four Flying Eyes zoomed through the building to the vestibule, taking up position near the ceiling above Rachel. Another quick mental call sent Stitch quickly rolling towards the kitchen to make tea (the mechanics helper drone was good at tea, but never seemed to get soykaff quite correct).

She pulled one of the Pellipers out of the van and got it up on its fans then opened the garage door enough for it to slide out and then pop about 50 meters up into the air where it could keep an eye on the area around HQ, looking to see if anyone else seemed to be paying attention to the building or were loitering unconvincingly.

Finally she banged the worst of the dirt off her coverall and hands, and walked towards the conversation while monitoring the feeds. On the way she made a list in her link of things she already wanted to know: where the boyfriend had gone, did he own a vehicle and if so was it missing, last known location, his link info, names of friends who might know more, when had she last seen him and had they argued. There would be more, but she'd found that the sooner she started the list the less likely she was to forget to ask important questions.

"Alright, alright. Lady, you need to calm down a bit. Take a deep breath. In... Out... In... Out... Yeah, like that. That is good! Okay, now why don't you start at the beginning..."

As Felicitas - or Maria - explains what is going on, Rachel sends a quick text to the rest of the team (sans Bobby, since he has left without any ways to contact him, well... kind of).

<< We have a client! And I get the distinct feeling that this is very urgent... >>

While she listens and nods to her story, Rachel guides the woman to a place where she can sit down.

"Okay. Let me first say, that Maria Gonzales is a super cool name. Probably not 'exotic' enough, though, for the biz. I mean, Felicitas Aglimente, that one rolls right off the tongue. Anyways, you came to the right place. As you know, we have found some hard-to-find people before. And we will do what we can, to get Diego and his crew back."

"The others will be here soon. Can I get you something to drink? Something to calm the nerves? Tea? Something stronger? I mean, who cares that it's early in the morning, right?"

When she heads off to the kitchen area to get some drinks, Rachel also uses the moment to cast a spell on herself (Increase Charisma F6: 6 hits; no Drain; sustained with Focused Concentration).

"When you have calmed down, maybe you can think about anything else Diego has told you about that big thing he was going after? Has anything from this been streamed, already? Any rivals... or enemies you can think of that we should look into? Anything else you can tell us about that Ares connection of his? And we will definitely need to see his place, especially after what you said."

"I also noticed that you seem a little paranoid yourself. Do you think someone was following you?"

"And... ahh, I always hate to mention this... but you do know, our services are not free, right?"

"Thanks, but just water - or a herbal tea. They are monitoring my intake and the implants are pretty new."

Another trap of the corporate (shelf-)life: Making big money comes with severe limits to your personal freedom - unless you are making really big money.

"Yes, he did - kinda. He made a big secret about it with his last announcement on stream. Here is the link."

She flicked her wrist and a video link popped up, asking permission to be played on the rooms holo display.

The time stamp sat at the end of a two hour video titled: "The Secrets of Saeder Krupp uncovered - What's really going on in the dragon slayer workshops"

A man in his early to middle twenties was on screen - olive complexion with thick curly hair and a ridiculous attempt at a mustache, with a small collections of piercings along his ear and a data jack on his left temple. His eyes were striking though, giving him a very soulful look. The scene opened in a very dark, concrete structure. The light of the camera only caught the first four meters or so around the man's head and upper torso - obviously filmed by a small drone with limited lighting capacity.
"...So you see, that's what remains of the dragon civil war. All those recruits that went through here - gone! And all for that greedy Euro-Trash Dragon. We'll analyse the chips we found and maybe, just maybe, we'll find out what happened to the people recruited here.

Though that's for another time - our next project is a lot closer to home. Seattle history, I tell you. Gruesome history. Enough to turn the reddest samurai white. Can't tell you more right now. Premium viewers get the content first as always you others will have to wait until next week. Like and subscribe for more Urban Mystery"

The video ended with a cartoon assembly of four caricature people sporting cameras and baseball bats running through endless corridors, punching ghouls and other monsters before jumping out of a window and the building exploding in the background.

Felicitas picked up the conversation again: "If you look at the comments you can see a bunch of haters there. Some are from the Extreme Sports Club - there's Martin Marten and his solo project - he has stolen Diego's ideas before and butchered them with his quick but only surface deep reporting. You know, Diego spends most of his time researching the objects he goes into. He, Dave, Roberto and Skull know what they are doing. They always send in drones first and never go unarmed. The parkour they do on screen looks so great because they study the layout first and plan their route.
He got an offer from Evo to switch his sponsorship, but he rejected them in favor of Ares Entertainment, because of his contact there - Roy Charleston - and of course because I'm now under contract there as well."

When asked about being followed, she said:

"Yeah, after going to his apartment, I saw someone quickly walk away. Tall elf with a trenchcoat. Didn't think much about it, but then I saw him again at the club and then again when I got home, sitting on a bench.
And of course I don't want to cross the Crimson Crush. Getting on their bad side would complicate my work in the Barrens.

I've got money - and Diego and his crew too. I still have most of my signing bonus as well as the royalties from my tantra fitness feed.
How about 10k per person you find and double that for Diego. I don't want to go to his parents. They are loaded, but they hate what Diego does. If they find out he was really in danger, I don't think they would keep letting him do what he does.
But you need to find him within the next five days. The drop off will be brutal, especially if the premium subscribers don't get their content before the regular viewers."

Mato is reasonably philosophical about the lack of business. Sure, consistent cash flow was and would be nice, but he has nerves of steel (or titanium-and-carbon-fiber alloy) when it comes to things like this.

"We'll be fine," he says if Tamarind expresses any frustrations. "Remember that 95 percent of our income comes from the big jobs. All we need is one."

Mato's bigger concern in the changing of the seasons. Today is the last day of spring; tomorrow will be the first day of summer. Summer means heat, and as a quadruple amputee Mato's thermoregulatory responses are constrained. His body compensates by increasing the sweat rate of his chest and back. He's often shirtless in the summer to help air out and cool down. He'd be self-conscious, but then there's Bobby setting the bar for both public and private nudity, so Mato thinks little of it.

When he hears that they have a visitor, he decides to pull on a long-sleeve shirt. He doesn't yet know about the client's extensive implants, so decides to cloak his metal arms. The cyberhands remain out though. He's not going to put on gloves indoors.

Mato arrives at the meeting, sees that the potential client is Latina, and hopes that his Aztlaner heritage will help set her at ease. "Un placer conocerte," he says, saying that it's a pleasure to meet her.

Mato doesn't know much about Combat Biker or Urban Brawl, but he is familiar with the local parkour scene and, to a lesser extent, urban exploration. He thinks back to what he knows about the players involved.

"Alright, so Diego is currently sponsored by Ares," Mato says. "How long has Diego had that sponsorship? Is Ares aware of his disappearance?"

<<Long list of possible suspects>> he comms to the team. <<Evo, the spurned suitor. Saeder-Krupp, the subject of Diego's investigation. I'm not going to scratch Ares off the list either. If they consider Felicitas to be the more important asset then they might be willing to sacrifice Diego if they consider him a distraction or, worse, if the relationship impairs her marketability. Then there's Martin Marten and the other haters, and elves in trench coats. Or just general misfortune, like running into more ghouls than they could handle.>>

<<But if she has so much money, why the cheap Urban Explorer knockoff? Is it to go slumming in Redmond?>>

"You mentioned the Crimson Crush," Mato says. "How would any of this put you on their bad side?"

Mato had actually heard and seen Diego before - about three years ago, the guy already had a big channel, focused on Parkour tricks and fitness tips. It was moderately entertaining, but for Mato's taste quite a bit amateurish. He did work with an ork though - Skull - who helped him set up his stunts and acted quite often as his booster and stepping stone for vertical acrobatics.

Felicitas smiled when Mato greeted her in Spanish, but immediately became serious again when he asked about the sponsorship:
"He has been doing this for the last two years, half a year in, he got the sponsorship when he managed to break 100k subscribers. It's not rolling-in-money money, but enough to finance his flat. The rest comes from the premium subscribers. I asked Roy if he knows where Diego is, but Roy hadn't heard anything - just that Diego is working on something extra juicy. So as long as he doesn't miss his deadline, Roy didn't want to do anything about it just yet."


When Mato asked about the Crimson Crush, Felicitas frowned: "The embargo... don't you know? There are gangers about warning people against going to you because you are supposed to work on a big thing for them. So I took my oldest gear and snuck past their post."

Stitch almost had the water boiling by the time their client stated a preference for herbal tea, so Tamarind passed along to her drone to make up the lemon-ginger, and a few minutes later the tracked drone rolls in with the tea.

Tamarind waits to come in just after, having paused to start reviewing their client's matrix channel. She almost doesn't go in, somehow she suspects that she's not the client's target demographic, but she makes herself go in all the same. Just in time to hear about the embargo.

<<Can I have a drone drop a pizza box packed with grenades on his head? I'm sure if we worked at it we could get some white phosphorous ones, that seems appropriately horrific to deliver a message.>>

<<Big Stank that is, not our client's boyfriend>>

In public she puts on a sympathetic smile, and offers "I can send out a drone screen to make sure the way is clear for you when you are leaving, or drive you out in my van and take you somewhere safer."

"Where are my manners... Felicitas, I am Rachel. These are Mato and Tamarind. And the tall one, that will surely join us soon, is AM."

"That is a decent offer. A little below our current standard, but a good baseline."




When there is an opportune moment, she will text the team.

<< We will have to have a word with those Crimson Crush folks. What are they thinking!? >>

Felicitas nodded:

"Yeah, I see. I can add maybe a success bonus? Like if you find him and he gets to air his episode on time, I can add another 10k - I'm sure Diego will chip in."

To Tamarinds offer she smiled: "Oh yes, that would be great. I've hit my old bike down the road in an alley."

A boycott! Mato thinks. We're important enough to boycott!

He gets a strange satisfaction from it, taking it as a sign that the agency is moving up in the world. After all, a man without enemies is a man without qualities.

<<Oh, it's perfectly obvious>> he tells Rachel. <<They wish to incentivize us to pursue their case, to cut off all other options and opportunities. Although I personally think it would have been more effective if they had actually told us. This is rather more passive-aggressive than I would expect of ork gangers and the associated criminal syndicate.>>

"For future reference, we can come to you if it's safer," Mato tells Felicitas. "Why, there's a lovely ice cream shop in Bellevue where we met the clients who hired us to find Brent.

"As it happens, I am familiar with the community you are describing. Diego hit my radar about three years ago. His channel was already big by that point. I even participated a bit myself, more for the physical outlet rather than the publicity.

"So, to be clear, the list of missing persons includes Diego, Dave, Roberto, and Skull, correct? Are any of the others sponsored?

"And what exactly does Ares sponsor Diego to do? Acrobatic feats and exciting explorations? Or are they underwriting the investigations as well?"

<< I get that. But they could just hire us. Or do they expect us to do the work for them for free? I might not be fully up to date on this whole relationship. >>

Felicitas replied:

"The whole channel is sponsored - the team mentions the gear they are wearing, show of the features and discuss which cool new shows Ares Entertainment is currently streaming. The usual stuff.
Yes, all four usually go out together - especially when they do deal with ghouls. They have Ares guns and swords as well as armor.
Diego is the face and leader - as well the main researcher. Dave is the drone specialist and hacker - he has some pretty impressive custom builds including some real combat crawlers. Roberto has a bit of magic talent - he can see in the astral and knows how to deal with wards and stuff. Skull is the bodyguard for the team - he is really good with swords and guns - did spent three years in the army."

Weeks of idleness have made AM a little lax.

The confrontation with her mother left her empowered — but also drained. Like a stone had been removed from her chest, only to leave a hollow ache in its place. A strange clarity, followed by a lack of motivation.

So, naturally, she spent the night buried in VR, playing Urban Brawl until nearly 4 a.m.

She’s late to the party.

“Must be an actual client if Rachel’s calling me in that voice, she wouldn't do it for a casual case.” she mutters, rubbing her face as she exits the sim.

Of course, she already knows. Trouble is lounging in the living room, pretending to be a cat and doing a very poor job of being unnoticeable.

She brushes her teeth, strips without ceremony, and throws on jeans and a loose tee. It won’t win her a fashion award, but it also won’t get her hit with a harassment complaint if there’s a minor present.

No makeup. No fixing her hair. Just mission mode.

She ignores everyone as she descends into the shared space, heading straight for the kitchen. She sets the water to boil and leans against the counter like gravity is a little too heavy this morning.

“Good morning,” she says flatly. Pure formality. There’s nothing good about waking up at 8:30 when you’ve been sim-gaming past 4.

She stifles a yawn.

“I’m AM. Short for Amy. I’m the team’s decker.”

No mention of magic. That’s Rachel’s domain for now.

“Care to give me the very short version? I got smacked down with a digital plastic chair in the Brawl. Real biofeedback and everything. Got caught off guard. Didn’t expect a chair to be a viable weapon.”

She pours her coffee, finally making eye contact with the client. She’s awake now — technically. But she’s not entirely here yet.
She still need a few sips.

<<In fairness, Big Stank did offer to pay>> Mato replies to Rachel. <<Indeed, now that the reward has been doubled, the official offer is basically the same as Felicitas'. The primary difference is that the assignment to find Bonita was framed more as a bounty rather than a dedicated job. We'll see what Bobby finds, besides love and his inner light.>>

Mato nods along with Felicitas' explanation.

"Yes, it sounds like a competent operation. That's no surprise, since you don't last this long if you're a gonk.

"As the clock is ticking, we should get started soon. It would be helpful if you could provide us access to Diego's residence, plus any contacts who may have clues about where Diego went. Do we know where Dave, Roberto, and Skull live?"

Lived, he thinks darkly, although he tries to shake the thought out of his head.

Again the young woman nodded:

"Yeah, that's easy. They rent a big house together in Bellevue. Diego gave me the password to enter. I'll let you in and show you where everything is. But as I told you - four guys living together - it looks pretty chaotic. Bring me to my bike and follow me."

>> Big Stank is an asshole. I told him to his face we're not looking for Bonita when he didn't lift a finger to protect us from his own syndicate. I told him that... while struggling with debt because the dude might have voted to blow our office in their little syndicate committee. You were the one getting blown up Mato, how come you are so positive about this buissness opportunity?

I leave out the part where I wish him a humiliating death as a tuna fish out of water... I picture me and Bobby smiling at the sight... but even Bobby is looking for Bonita in his own bizarre way... The Bobby I once needed to restrain from doing such things. The one that spoke about killing Nightmare to make the world a better place, even he has become tame as if he mastered the beast, I guess he had to being so powerful.

So the irony of my life is that I'll have to humiliate myself and take money I don't need from a person that nearly sniffed part of my soul and is completely indifferent to our interests.

When the client, whose name I didn't quite get speaks about going out, the thought of leaving for that apartment cheers me up. I take another, slow and pleasurable sip from my coffee, and smile for the first time because driving the Mirage is sure to wake me up.

I place the coffee with a click on the table to indicate that I want to go.

<<I don't take it personally>> Mato tells AM. <<They weren't trying to blow me up; I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.>>

<<That was four months ago and they haven't tried anything since then, at least not until this boycott. I was hoping that the hatchet was buried, but I guess we need to pull it back out.>>

There's a separate line of thinking that Mato doesn't articulate. His extreme cybermodifications and Essense loss create a disconnect between his body and mind. What happens to his body is like something out of a dream, or like watching something happening to someone else. The sensation is almost floaty. It's like he's the passenger and his body is the vehicle.

"Yes, that's a good idea," he tells Felicitas. "Hmm, Bellevue. Usually I would dress up to blend in, but given their profession I'm guessing their neighbors see a lot of odd characters come and go."

Maybe I can score some gear out of this, he thinks idly to himself. I wonder if Skull will have anything that fits me....

Mato won't admit it out loud, but he is torn about Ares' Globetrotter line, as that's what he was wearing when he was blown up in February. One side of him is superstitious and considers it bad luck, but the other side of his mind counters that the Globetrotter jacket probably saved his life. A compromise, perhaps. A Wild Hunt jacket instead, even though it costs more than double.

He gets his things ready to leave.

I read Mato’s text and don’t respond right away.
I don’t lash out. Don’t try to convince him.

The absurdity of the whole situation paralyzes me.
I don’t even know what I could say.

He got blown up.

And yet, I’m the one still shaken, four months later.

He’s moved on completely — calm, reasonable, impossible.
And I’m here, jaw clenched, rereading his words like they’ll somehow make sense on the second, third, or tenth pass.

I stay poised.
We have a client.

But what I want is... I don’t know.
To slap him?
To kiss him?
To stab him — and then apologize?

To do something that might make him less impossible.

Or maybe I’m just green with envy —
Because he’s healing so fast, and I’m still in pieces carrying the emotional scars.

Praise Iktomi for... whatever the lesson is supposed to be.

Looking for a distraction — and realizing I’m about to be seen like I just rolled out of bed and grabbed the first clean shirt —
I cast Makeover.

The spell takes hold instantly.
My hair’s clean, styled. Fingernails: a perfect pink and white.
My cheeks are gently blushed. The dark signs under my eyes? Gone.

Outside, I’m flawless.
Odd sense of fashion, but well groomed.
Inside... just don't look inside.

Felicitas stood up, took a last sip from her tea and nodded towards the garage: "Alright, let's go - every second counts."
Her movements reveal the extensive reflex enhancement she must have received - as well as a pronounced twichyness.

Mato's eye gives a funny twitch when he sees Felicitas move. He feels a certain kinship toward the cyber-enhanced. Is she an evangelist, a true believer, or someone just looking maximize her earning years? The accountant in him wonders how much Ares paid for versus what she had to chip in herself.

Mato isn't the fastest and he knows it. He's okay with it because he considers himself well-rounded in other regards. But, still, he's fast, and it's unusual for him to come across someone who is probably even faster. It intimidates him, but also makes him extremely curious. He resolves to watch Urban Hunter when this is all over.

Tamarind gives a mental call out to her drones <<OK gang, to the van!>> They all know what to do when given that command, right down to Stitch heading down to open doors for the others to get into their holders. The one exception is the the Pelliper-1, which she launched earlier to survey around HQ. That one she sends to start flying towards their destination, of course following approved delivery drone airspace once in Bellevue.

This job is time sensitive, we may not make it back here for a bit, better bring all that might be useful. She walks Felicitas to the garage and invites her to make herself comfortable in the van, then hurries back to the main part of the house to grab her big go-bag, the one with armour and weapons and tools and so forth. It is a heavy, awkward, duffel bag, but at least it is ready to go. And feeling like she is prepared is part of how she deals with the anxiety of a new job.

Once she is back to the van she makes sure that she has whoever from the team plans to come with her rather than in or on their own vehicles, then takes Felicitas to where she stashed her bike. She does mention "I know it was mentioned earlier, but you can arrange to meet us elsewhere, should you need to do so again."

Mato follows Tamarind's lead and packs up a duffel bag of grey-market equipment. Most of what he needs is already in his head and cyberlimbs, but sometimes it's necessary to carry specialized equipment.

He jumps in the Econovan with Tamarind as her drone gang settles into their places.

Making idle conversation, Mato asks Felicitas, "Given your profession, do you hate driving out in the real world? Or do you just drive the same way you do at work and race up and down the freeway at 200kph?"

Felicitas laughed:
"If I didn't love driving in the city, I'd have the wrong job. It's not just about speed, it's predicting what happens next, knowing the terrain in detail and having the right tool ready for every situation."

The drive is a short one, before the team reaches the hiding place of the bike. Felicitas removed a tarp to reveal a genuine Ares Warfighter - Ares' answer to the BMW Blitzkrieg.
The weapon mounts aren't obvious, but for Tamarind it's obvious where the modifications have been made.

Felicitas now with the right contact data sent the address of the crew's house. To the team's surprise, the address is only about five minutes on foot from their own neighborhood. Even the security is the same as in their own gated community. Which was going to be a welcome asset in about a minute when they approached the manned gate. Felicitas had already been let through when the team arrived and was stopped by a tall Japanese looking rent-a-cop:
"Do you have an appointment with a resident here?"

Dammit, I don't get to drive and I need the deck. I go pack a few essentials and head to the van. Not having the defiance in me and kind of wanting to see Tamarind in action. She should be a good driver, like very good right? part of me want to know where I am in the drivers pecking order not that a casual drive to town counts.

Rachel quickly changes from her casual clothes to her Executive Suite, since it is the only set of armored clothing she owns at the moment. And who knows in what kind of trouble they will run.

Normally she would take her time, but given the lack of that at the moment, she simply relies on her magic to make herself presentable after the change of clothes. Her hair is in a ponytail now.

Gear-wise, there is not much to grab. So that part is done quickly as well. A black ball cap and orange sunglasses complete her outfit. Agent Raven is ready to go.

When they approach the area, she thinks: Ah, perfect! Then we can make a quick stop and grab my preparations. Some of those could come in handy given the nature of our client.

Tamarind was surprised that AM came in the van, instead of pulling out her bike and riding with their client. Maybe she wants to be more inconspicuous?

It was a full van with the full team, the client, and Tamarind's drones, so it was a relief to drop off their client and let everyone ease into their usual seats. She makes no attempt to keep up with Felicitas, instead driving sedately out of the barrens and letting Grid Guide take over once they were in Bellevue. As usual, she prefers not to attract attention.

When they see that the Parkour gang lived in a community similar to theirs, she wondered how well they got along with their HOA? Was this HOA more tolerant? Did the guys keep the outside of the house in decent condition, even if the inside was such a mess that Felicitas couldn't tell if it had been searched or not?

Arriving at the guard, she simply replied "We have an appointment at (the address)." If pushed on who the appointment is with she'll admit that it is the girlfriend of one of the residents who has invited them, adding "we just live over in " (name of their community) "so it was no bother to pop over."

The guard nodded, having likely spotted the AR Tag indicating you are from the neighboring neighborhood.
"I have to check if this is ok - one moment please."

A few tense seconds went by, then the guard waved: "Alright. Ms. Gonzales is registered as legitimate visitor and can bring up to four additional visitors with her. Ms. Gonzales has confirmed your invite. Have a good day."

Driving to the address revealed a well kept two story building with three drones busy keeping the lawn short, the bushes shaped and the house in pristine color.
Felicitas stood at he front door, waiting for the team.

As promised, inside the house, it was a different story altogether. The main entrance hall was a combination of open plan kitchen and living room with one gigantic holoscreen, a large, very comfortable looking couch and two love seats.

A table with six chairs and a life sized Karl Combatmage doll were the only other furniture. Everywhere empty fast food wrappers, dirty clothes, empty cans of energy drinks and beer, half gutted drones and other assorted gear lay on every available surface. A staircase led up to the upper level and down into a cellar. A door at the kitchen side led into a utility room which in turn led into the back yard and to the garage. Another door in the main room led to a large pantry, while the fourth door led to a kind of home gym with an impressive amount of equipment. The gym was perfectly tidy - with every piece of equipment at its correct place.
"The gym is Skull's room - I sometimes wonder how he can live in the chaos outside his refuge. Might explain why he is so buff - he spends as much time in there as he can", commented Felicitas.

A look upstairs revealed a master bedroom with en-suite bath and three other rooms that shared a common bathroom - that also included a jacuzzi. The bathroom was in better shape - probably because of the cleaning drone that kept the floor clean, but not the shelves organized.
A folding ladder gave access to an attic.

The master bedroom was relatively tidy - the floor was clean and only the laundry hamper was filled with dirty clothes. The bed wasn't made though and all the doors and drawers stood open with various pieces of high end clothing hanging out. It did look like someone had searched for something, but hadn't gone so far as to throw everything out. A large desk set against the only window inside the room and had a full workstation with a charging cradle for a high end Fairlight commlink.

The other rooms varied in their chaos. One was chock full of pseudo mystic equipment as well as some genuine reagents - the stench of patchouli permeated everything - including the black satin bed sheets that lay crumpled on the floor. All wardrobe doors were closed, though a large piece of fabric hung out.

The next room looked remarkably similar to Tamarind's garage - shelves full of technical gear and drone replacement parts filled one wall completely. The single bed in the corner was smaller than the large work desk that had everything you needed to build, repair and modify technical gear. Here a charging station for a Hermes cyberdeck sat empty. Lots of dirty laundry covered the floor.

The fourth room was perfectly in order: The bed was made, with corners so sharp you instinctively avoided them as not to cut yourself. Every last bit of gear was in its place. A large weapons locker sat in the corner, with a small workbench beside it, that held everything you needed to maintain weapons, as well as a kit for custom bullets. Everything here spoke of discipline and self denial. No art or ornamentation inside, except for a framed picture on the wall depicting a group of young soldiers smiling. A black border in the upper corner indicated that at least one of the depicted was no longer alive.

The door to the cellar was locked with an impressing maglock.

Mato nods, looking around. "It's a mess, neh? And if ain't, it'll do until the mess gets here."

The first thing he does is activate his radar sensors and walk around the house. He looks for anything hidden, like a safe in the wall or in the floor, or any spaces that are concealed.

Once that's done, he'll go to his duffel bag and get his cyberware scanner. He's not looking for cyberware, of course, but it functions as a millimeter wave detection system that can help him look through the mess on the floor. Maybe it could help find a needle in this haystack.

"It's curious. It looks like it was searched, but not very thoroughly. So either someone found what they were looking for right away, or they were interrupted. Or it was one of the residents looking for their lucky t-shirt and they couldn't find it. AM, is there any sort of home security system to tap into?"

He looks maglock to the basement and then to Tamarind. "Do you want the honors?" he asks. "Or shall I?" He studies the structure of the door, just in case the maglock defeats both of them.

Rachel's eyes look around, seeing chaos everywhere. Well, mostly everywhere, anyways. That Catalog spell would be handy now... she thinks.

"They have so much gear and drones and stuff, and they couldn't get one to keep the place a little more tidy?"

Naturally, she shifts her view into the astral to see what kind of impression she can get there, but first Rachel uses her newly acquired powers to summon a spirit and merge her own astral form with the spirit's to augment her ability to interprete the astral impressions (summon Guidance Spirit with Channeling and cast Increase Intuition spell). She will look especially close to the area that could have been searched (Assensing with 5 hits).

After they've had a look around, Tamarind suggests "Let's try to find anything that is more hidden -- items running silent, magical traces, hidden spaces, things tucked out of sight -- all of that. Then work through the obvious things to work on, like the cameras and basement, then we can decide if it is worth spending the time trawling through all of everything else, or if we have enough."

"I'll put my small drones looking for things slid behind furniture or anything like that, AM and I can both look for things running silent on the matrix, and maybe we can split the cameras -- I can probably manage the ones outside."

"¡Hola, amigo!" Mato tells the bedroom safe once he discovers it.

He goes to his duffel bag to retrieve his lockpicking kit, plus his tool kit for maglocks. Before he gets to work, he checks in with Felicitas.

"Do you know of any reason why we should not check the bedroom safe or the basement?" he asks her. "We're looking for any leads about where they went. If they found a chip that led them to their investigation, then I'm hoping they left a copy behind. Or anything else that can help narrow this search down."

Between drones, sensors, cyberware and spirit enhanced assessing, no wrapper stayed unturned.

Rachel found that the cellar was protected by a surprisingly strong ward that was able to zap intruders.(F10)

There were a lot of different aura traces around, but no violence or other bad feelings. On the whole the place felt harmonic and joyful. Whatever happened to the crew, internal strife likely wasn't the cause.

The direct access to the cameras gave Tamarind the recordings of the last 48 hours. They showed the four inhabitants coming down from the first floor. Diego went into the cellar while the others packed their gear, putting on armored jackets, strapping on hand guns and hefting full backpacks. Skull also carried a big shotgun with magazines in various colors in easy to access pockets all over his torso.
Diego reappeared five minutes later and all of them left the building at precisely 0100h in the night on Monday, June 19.
After that the video showed no movement, though when analysed there appeared to be a distortion around 0600h the same day. Closer inspection showed that from one frame to the other some of the debris on the ground had shifted around. The conclusion was easy to make: someone else had hacked the cameras and altered the recordings around that time.

At 1235h Felicitas appeared on screen, calling out into the room and then vanishing upstairs, only to reappear in a hurry, leaving the building again.

Asked by Mato, Felicitas answered:
"Diego keeps the valuable stuff and his research down there. If you can open the door without triggering the alarm or destroying the place, I'd say sure, go ahead. Same with the safe, though Diego usually just keeps his gun a bit of cash and important papers in there that he would need in case of a fire or something."

Finally, Tamarind's drones found something tucked away in the room with the drone parts: a partly disassembled data storage device that looked to be about 15 years old. It had been carefully opened to remove an explosive self destruct device. The data likely had been copied, but the original storage remained intact.

Tamarind points AM at the storage device. "Just in case there is any tricks on this, I'd rather you read it -- you have more ability to keep it from deleting itself, or whatever."

Besides, this means she has time to tell her drones how clever they are and to put them all away properly.

"Plenty of items here to try and track them via ritual magic. I can also take a look into the astral space of that warded area, most likely."

Rachel then casts her spell (Astral Window with 3 net hits; Assensing 3 hits), pushing her astral senses past the barrier.
It's not perfect, but it should allow her to get an impression of what is inside the warded area.

Inside warded room, the astral atmosphere is completely different. There are items on shelves, glowing brilliant to the astral senses. Violence, fear and death cling to them - and something else, hard to describe but certainly and fundamentally wrong.
The artifacts are mostly tools and look like old drone appendages - though drones from a very fragged up sawmill comboed with a particularly nasty street doc.

Saw blades, syringes, clamps, electrodes and several other kinds of harder to identify implements sit around in a very orderly fashion.

Rachel explains what she can see from here to the others.

"We definitely need to get into that room. Maybe that is part of what Diego was talking about?"

I browse the environement but say nothing, that place is awsome. They seem so... careless and happy. I respond to Tam's request and check for silently running devices, and then hack the security system trying to see if I can study the previous intruder, if they left something in the security logs. All in hot sim while crushing on their awesome coach. Because well... why not. In the meanwhile, Trouble being themselves, or some version of myself without the ability to die and without regrets just materlizes in the locked room and looks around. Laughing at us limited humans that need to physically open the door to see anything. "My brilliance is wasted at mortals like you" they think playfully at me, and I just smile or drool a little because I am deep in the wonderland and immesnely enjoying myself.



==========
1. AM would use Trouble to cast improve logic and improve intuition. She sustains the intution with focused concentration, and Trouble sustains the logic. She does not need to roll because she can buy 4 hits, rolling for drain she takes 1S.
drain x2: 2#11d6t5 1 3

2. Once her senses and mind are sharpen, AM starts trixing. She first do matrix perception with her commlink (DP 7)
Matrix perception (+4 intuition + hot sim): 20d6t5 7 she keeps all hits.


3. She would look for a physical way to access the security system, and if so would hack it directly. She is after the security logs perhaps there is some breadcrumbs there.

Hack on the fly (+4 logic+ hot sim): 22d6t5 6
Matrix perception: 20d6t5 5 to see what kind of protections is any the security logs have.
Data bomb (if there is)?: 15d6t5 7 ( I think she keeps it, would double check if it matters).
Edit File: 22d6t5 10 her limit with careful program selection is 7. Which she is not in a hurry so she'll be in the perfect configuration before trying.


4. Trouble would materialize in that room and check it out with physical perception. Looking for things of interest they can use psycokinesis to manipulate their environment if need be. Since they are technically an NPC not directly following AM's order feel free to make it interesting if you want.

Perception for Trouble: https://orokos.com/roll/1043715: 10d6t5 4

AM cracked the security host with ease thanks to access to the physical devices. The host is a standard commercial product - sponsored by Ares - with little customization. The security logs show no intruder, but a deeper examination reveals the same tampering in the early morning as the cameras received. Someone was here - capable of erasing their digital tracks.

There are a few silent running devices around - narrowing it down, AM realized that they are sophisticated sensor tags with stealth capabilities. Someone bugged the apartment with audio/visuell sensors in every room. None of them have any data on them, but are logged into the Public Grid.

Trouble tried to pass the barrier from the astral, but found it painfully active there as well - a strong zap of elemental electricity shook the spirits essence and made cat body's hair stand on end - causing Trouble to resemble a particularly fluffy bottle brush.

">>>place is completely bugged do you want me to tag the devices so we unbug it? or perhaps hack them so we can trace where they are transmitting."

<< We should remove them, but it might be a good idea to see if you can find out more about where they are sending their data to first. >>

Hearing that there are bugs, Mato switches to DNI.

<<Alright, so we have a very gentle tossing of the place. Either it was just for show or they knew right where to find whatever they wanted.>>

<<We have some camera looping at 0600. I wonder if our friends at Sakura Security would have any records of who came or went around that time.>>

<<But the safe is unmolested and the maglock to the basement is too, unless the intruder(s) defeated them both and then reset them. Possible, but it seems more likely that their intent was to place the bugs.>>

<< According to Felicitas, there was someone still watching the place. If those are the same people that were in here, they might not have found what they were looking for, yet. >>

<<Good chance that they will follow us after, to see if we can lead them to whatever it is that they want. We'll need to think about when and where we let them follow us, and when it is time to try and shake them>> Tamarind might be grinning as she sends that message. <<Of course they might just try and keep an eye on us using the matrix, which would be more annoying and boring.>>

She brings up the camera feeds from the 'Pelipper' (delivery drone) that she'd sent from HQ to this area. She starts giving it directions to let her scan the area around this house in more detail, looking for vehicles or drones that could be ready to trace them when they leave. Maybe nobody will try and tail them, but might as well look into ahead of time.

The drones show a pretty sedate neighborhood - anyone who has to work has already gone away for the day, while anyone staying at home stuck to their home or at least backyard.

Relying on her years of smuggling and evading attention from law enforcement, Tamarind looked closely at a few parked cars that could conceivably be used to shadow the team, but none appeared to be occupied - or ready to leave.

<<I'm not seeing any obvious surveillance vehicles, but I don't have the sort of coverage to tell if there is a small drone in a shrubbery or a lurker in a nearby house.>>

<<So, we going to go safe cracking or going into the basement? If we are, we should do something about the tags first. If not I'd be OK with just leaving them, and letting them see us leave empty-handed>>

>> Devices report to some dead drop, we can ambush that site but otherwise it is a dead end. Might be interesting to hack that place and see if there is anything there.

<<Sure, it's a lead>> Mato agrees. <<Which is more than we have at the moment. Do we need to leave them running for the dead drop to remain active? If so, can we loop their signal while we're going about our breaking and entering?>>

<<AM, I can tackle these maglocks physically but they will likely be more responsive to your sweeter siren song.>>

>> Okay sailor, I'll sing to the Maglock. You might want to cover your ears if you don't want to crush on the rift.

I don’t rise, or even visibly move — still sprawled on the couch like some groupie who had one too many drinks. But beneath the surface, my mind sharpens, locks in.

The maglock's on my radar now. Hot sim burns my veins in a powerful bliss, vivid, electric, alive — as my hacking subroutines spool up, dissecting the lock’s architecture. Every flicker of code, every line of security protocol, it all unravels under my gaze, looking for a weakness to exploit.

One crack in the digital armor is all I need to open that lock.