Raton nods and slides over to the terminal and clicks a cable into his converter as he sinks down beside it. Reclining, he jacks in, letting the Matrix rezz around him.

Knowing that his jackpoint is vulnerable, he does a quick "round the world" before getting to the task at hand. Checking his email. And right after that, he starts looking for information about this seeming fortress in Snohomish.

Token says, "I might be able to cast animate on the weapons platforms and curl their barrels. Might be able to use it on the wall to make it do some interesting things, too. Like curl around and sequester the security, or move it so it provides us cover right up to the door.

"I wonder if the bullet proof glass on the guard houses is tinted?"

"You can almost garuntee that Token. Moving the walls is not a good idea, once they get around to the opening, they just follow the path, that's bad for us. Now, animating the monowire to keep them at bay might prove fruitful."

"I was thinking of moving the walls on either side of the gate right up to the back door. It would cut off the paracritters and their handlers. It would provide cover and a barrier from those gun emplacements on the corners of the building. And we could get to the door of the guard house because it would be sitting by a useless gate. I could animate the door open on the guard house and we could toss in some concussion grenades. Hopefully, Raton could cut off their communications.

"All this is kind of in the brainstorming stage anyway. I don't know that we want to be so overt about assailing the target.

"More realistically, I think while I astral project and take out the paracritters, since they are dual natured and subject to astral attack, someone can snipe their handlers. We need to neutralize the motion sensors for the sniper, or have him positioned outside their range.

"That lake and wooded area has me slightly worried about domains for spirits, so we need to be on guard for them.

"Back to a plan. Once the roving patrols are out of commission, Raton cuts communications from the guard houses, and controls or subverts the sensors. I can animate the guard house door to open and we neutralize those guards. The assault team goes in invisible and concealed so they don't get hit by the gun emplacements on the corners of the building. If Raton can get control of those guns, fine. If not, we animate or freeze foam them out of commission.

If there is spirit opposition, hopefully Lee, my spirits and I can handle them. We may want to get a hold of some shock weapons just in case.

"Be nice to have a rigger in case this stuff is on a CCSS. We could get him access to the network in a few places."

"Anyone want to go take a first hand look at the compound?" Token asks. "I'd like to do some astral recon and maybe set up some surveillance. It could be helpful to know when guards change shifts. Who the security is, if it's in house or contracted security. If they have any service providers or regular deliveries.

"So, does anyone know what we're after yet? Shouldn't the target be in the data they gave us? I can get in and out of there myself, without leaving a giant pile of bodies to show I was there. No bodies is always a good idea. There's no older brother of the guy who was "just doing his job" gunning for you next week that way. I thought you guys knew that. If they wanted a frontal assault, they would have spent less money on a bigger, better armed merc team."

"True, but who said anything about leaving bodies? But we definitely need to know what we are extracting."

"My point is, we're not a mercenary team, we're Shadowrunners. We are paid to be stealthy, not blast our way in or out. That kind of talent is cheap and easy to come by. The reason we're making 10K each is because we have more skills than that."
"Try this on for size."
"Raton decks into their system, assuming they have one, and overloads a security camera. Then, he intercepts the call for help when some one notices the smoking. Myself, Token, Countdown and Irving hop in a van, named whatever it needs to be, with coveralls that say whatever they need to say, go in and fix it. I can do the job if necessary. While we're at it, Irving KO's the guy(s) watching us, and Countdown and myself get the target. We hop in the van and drive away. If there's trouble, we still have Raton in their Matrix and Kaneda on the outside to bust us out."

"So, where do I fit in?"

"If everything goes right, you make 10K for hiding in the bushes for an hour."

"Sounds like fun."

Irving smiles "well KO's or Just stands there and let's them shoot me with their piddly little pistols, doesn't hurt much at all. I have a tendancy to go with the latter, keeps them more distracted."

"I see one potential problem," Token says. "Would a repair team include four people? One or two is more likely."

Token suggests having a contingency plan for if all the guards are alerted while Lee sneaks inside. A plan for getting out the gate, and a plan for getting out of Snohomish while being pursued by guards and Lone Star.

Another contingency plan for if Lee gets caught inside. Or if he runs into unexpected trouble.

Probably need to speculate about probable security measures inside the building and counters to them. "I'd count on motion sensors and cameras. Probably guards."

Lee breathes a heavy sigh and smiles. "Great. Now we're talking. There's no reason to kill everyone in the compound to steal something. That's for go-gangers and the government."
"If there are no para-critters inside, I can use mask to imitate the guard that Irving KO's. That should get by most of the security, and Raton should be able to bypass most of the the rest. I'm pretty good at not being seen, as well as hacking mag locks and the like.

"How are you at not being heard or smelt?" Token asks. "Because those paracritters they have patrolling the grounds have acute senses. The barghest also has a couple of nasty ways of dealing with prey. Like paralyzing it with a howl. Or just inducing fear in it. I suggest we at least wear ear plugs.

"And like I said earlier, they are not going to let four guys go in to repair a sensor or camara without it arousing suspicion. Either we break a lot of them to warrant four guys or I'll watch from the bushes, too.

"I'll suggest again that we go take a first hand look at this place. See who provides security. Surely it's contracted seeing they have paracritters. I'd like to see if they have other kinds of magical security. Maybe someone can identify what we're up against with those weapon platforms.

"Maybe going in as the lawn care would be better. They should have the paracritters out of the way while we'd be there. Also, makes more sense for having four guys. A couple mowing, a couple trimming. A guy taking care of the potted plants. It is what... like ten acres. That's a big job for even four guys."

Three and a half hours after he sank down, Raton reaches up and unplugs his cable. He stretches and yawns, looking a little tired from sitting in an uncomfortable position for so long. "I've got some data," he says and then launches into what he's got.

"The facility is owned by Michael Versuvio. It is outside of Lone Star's contracted area, so all security is private. Black Eagle security company installed the camera's, scanners at the gates, and advanced mag locks on the house, however, there is no mainence plan. The house has a matrix system, however I couldn't tell whether or not the security system is on the Matrix from my search. The house system is on the Snohomish LTG, under the same RTG Seattle operates under. Landscaping is apparently private as well. Civil engineering plans are sketchy, beyond basic blueprints for the land and the walls. The walls, by the way, are 2 metres tall."

He rattles it all off and stifles another yawn. "The next thing I really want to check out is whether or not the security system is attached to the house Matrix system or not. If it is, this might be a lot simpler than we think."

"So we shouldn't have Lone Star chasing us across the plex," Token says. "Actually, if the security force should be chasing and shooting at us," Token smiles, "we could enter Lone Stars jurisdiction and call for help. Oh, okay. It probably wouldn't be wise, but it would be kind of funny.

"Anyway, the get away should be easier to plan. Maybe a vehicle mask spell, a spirit using movement or causing an accident. Yes, that should lose any pursuit.

"If no one wants to go check this place out tonight or do any more planning, I'm getting some shut eye. Perhaps sleerping on the situation will help clear the mind."

Raton shrugs. "I'm going to go ahead and see what the house Matrix system holds. Shouldn't take more than a few minutes if you want to hang around."

He reaches for the cable and situates himself in a more comfortable position than before. "If my ears start to smoke, yank the plug, okay?" he says with half a grin.

Shortly thereafter, he plugs in, diving into the digital landscape. He runs around the world a few times to disguise his initial jackpoint, redirecting his datatrail at each grid. Within three minutes, he is back on the Seattle RTG, moving like a ghost in the Matrix. He drops down into the correct LTG and starts looking for the MXP address. When he finds it, he runs a quick analysis and sleazes his way inside.

Irving's head pops up at even the joke of calling Lone Star "Token, not funny, No Lone Star period, I don't need to be prosecuted for being dead. just not conducive to business." Listening to Raton, "You got it, while you're in there if you can find out what kind of weaponry the guards'll likely have." looking back at Token Irving smiles, "I'm up for a midnight ride down through the racist farmlands, but I don't know if that's too good an idea."

"I'd like to tag along" Lee says. "Nothing like a bunch of freaky looking people slowly cruising by to put security at ease. Anyway, I'd like a first hand look at as much as possible. Maybe bandit can even do a little recon. I'm interested in spirits, or anything else that isn't limited to the ground, as well as normal stuff."
With that, Lee reaches into a pocket and pulls out a plastic jar. It says Vaseline on the side, but the contents that he puts on his face is black. With big circles around his eyes and 3 "whiskers" on each side of his face, Lee looks like an actor in the new Broadway play Coons.
"Hey, if you're gonna be a thief, you gotta look like a thief", Lee says, then high fives Bandit, who disappears.

April 6th, 2064. 3:30am

The ride out of the city grows increasingly peaceful, with the hard concrete and city lights giving way to the somewhat restored country side. The manor house looks exactly like the photograph, right down to the walls.

Tisoz - On your driveby, you locate 1 ward on the guard shack at the front and rear gates. There appear to be 6-8 watcher spirits patrolling the ground, and you catch sight of a guard leading a large dual natured dog around.

Raton - You plunge back into the virtual world that birthed you, slipping past guards and security like water. You arrive at the specified location, and are standing in front of a large, 3 story colonial style home. The front door is barred with a maglock, but you step to one side, searching around the wrap around porch, and slip in through an open window.

Irving - The windows at the guard shack are obviously tinted.

"Maybe I need to get some sleep," Token says, "because this seems less and less like Yamazika knows how to price a fraggin' job. And I'd like to know who Michael Versuvio is and what other little surprises there are. Evidently, they have a full time mage or two on staff, full time paracritters and handlers, about a quarter mile of monowire, full electronic sensors covering 10 acres, gun emplacements, two gaurd houses full of security.

"And absolutely no intel on what we'll meet inside. Wouldn't surprise me if they have a full closed circuit security system and a full time rigger or two, at least that's what the gun emplacement and all those sensors suggest."

Token looks at Lee. "How, exactly, do you plan on sneaking into that building? I'm figuring they have ultrasound detectors, and with all those watchers, you are going to be seen."

Wary of digital traps, Raton makes his way slowly through the house, his eyes shifting about the room with unnatural perception as he scans the host.

Turning around and talking over the seat, Lee says,
"Well, my origonal plan, which was just off the top of my head, still seems to have a chance. Not exactly as I put it down, but we were brainstorming, right?
I don't see any way we could mount an effective frontal assault on this place without a panzer. A couple of mages and a rigger with gun emplacements should be able to whack a few runners with off the rack body armor and second hand assault rifles. Add in the para critters and several gun bunnies, and we'd be toast, even if I'd be part of such a thing."
Turning back to the front, Lee settles himself in more and says, "Clearly, subterfuge is required here."

Raton - The house is cluttered with remnants of Victoria style furniture. They look like they've been placed there by someone more interested in having the furniture then seeing if it matched or even belonged in the room. It's sad when tacky people decorate hosts. The room you're in leads down past a series of doors on either side, with a wide, sweeping stairwell at the end.

Token - As you sight in an focus on the astral signatures of the wards and the watchers, there is a vague residual sense of some kind of twisted power. Not necessarily stronger then you, but simply tainted, in some way.

Raton zips through the host, looking for anything that might represent a security icon. In a tacky host like this, it could be a potted plant for all he knows.

Raton - As you're gliding down the narrow corridors stuffed with random bits of files, you come across one door marked "secCam" in red.

Token says, "You've got an assault rifle? I wish I had an assault rifle, even a second hand one. All kidding aside, do you feel that?"

Everyone looks at him like they are ready for Token to go off on another rant. "I got a feeling after I assensed the wards on those guard buildings and those watchers patrolling the place. It feels twisted: tainted somehow. Usually something like that needs killing.

"Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm all for subterfuge. But when your intel sucks as badly as ours does, the alarm usually goes off. And if you aren't ready to deal with that, you die."

Raton sidles up to the secCam door and looks it over. He pulls a lockpick from his "pocket" and waves it over the door, trying to get a look inside.

Raton - The door swings open, and you're greeted with a blast of white noise. You get jumbled flashes of images and sound and scanner output, all swirling together in an incomprehensible montage of sound and light.

Raton tries to adapt quickly and see just one image at a time, using his skill to ignore the others.

Raton - Despite your considerable skill, the barrage of images and static refuse to resolve into an individual scene.

Raton - You reach out, tweaking a bit of the dataflow here and there, and the static recedes, leaving you with two dozen or so individual video feeds, along with streams of data from various sensors posted around the grounds.

Raton grabs several camera streams in turn, trying to get an idea of what they cover as well as an overview of the security system for the outside. He seems particularly interested in views of the inside of the house.

Raton - The camera's cover the majority of the exterior of the house, including 1 at each guard gate. The security system on the outside consists of ultrasound emitters/detectors guarding the exterior of the walls, and seismic sensors scattered along the interior of the walls. The weapon points on the corners of the house send sensor information to this system, but are not controlled by it. The interior system consists of pressure plates guarding the roofs and all entrances, including windows, ultrasound emitters/dectors ...As your sifting through the various datstreams, you feel a slight lag in the system response time. It's that sort of brief resistance you get when the system is funneling all the data requests through a probe IC. You immediately slam the door shut on the incoming flow of information, shutting it off mid-stream, and de-rezz the system around you, blinking your eyes open and staring up at the ceiling in the communal living room.

Raton yawns slightly as he comes out of his Matrix trance. "The exterior stuff is on the Matrix. Shouldn't be hard to handle that when we need it. Didn't see anything for the inside, though, so we might be looking at a PLTG or a dedicated system. Worst case, CCSS."

April 6th, 2064 11:00am

Dawn has come as usual, tinted grey with the constant overcast of pollution that hangs over the city. It's a bit of a change from the clear skies over Snohomish, but definitely more familiar.

6 more days on the job...

After giving the host a little time to forget about him, Raton plunges back into the Matrix and tries again. He slips through the window as before and slides down the hallway to the security door, as before, and peeks inside.

Token shows up from his nice night of rest sleeping on a comfortable bed, and room service breakfast. He tells you of his plan to have a watcher spirit cross the astral space of the estate and run to the renraku arcology like the demons of hell are on its heels as soon as it is spotted. Token plans to observe what happens from a stealthy spot of astral space and see if he can get a glimpse of the magician that conjured the patrolling spirits or maybe trigger some spirits other than watchers to chase the watcher playing bunny rabbit.

If they don't chase, Token may send some closer and closer to test what they will and won't allow.

Lee awakens in his sleeping bag, in a storage shed in Tacoma. Before opening his eyes, he reaches out with his senses for Bandit. He sees himself sleeping, through a pair of mostly color blind eyes, looking up from foot level.
He lets go of bandits senses, and opens his eyes. "Well buddy, we've got some more work to do."
He rolls up his bag, rolls up his air mattress around the bag and throws a trash bag over them, so the rats don't crap on his bed. He puts his sneak suit on, then a pair of brown baggy Dockerz™ and his overcoat. Making sure everything else is in his duffle, he throws it over his shoulder, puts out the light, and opens the door. Closing and locking the door with an old combination lock, Lee heads out to the road, and walks to the bus stop.
Hopping off the bus in downtown Tacoma, he waves down a cab and rides to three blocks from the bolt hole. After walking around in two big circles, 5 then 2 blocks wide around the safehouse, checking for tails on him and surveillance on the apartment, he heads in.
Hearing Token's idea, Lee says, "Hey, I think that's a great idea. Let's probe their defenses a little. Do you mind if I join you?"

Raton - You slip back into the house, taking a long look around before pushing open the marked door again. You're swamped with the same wash of static, but a few flicks and twists and it clears up once more. You pick up the threads of information where you left off, reviewing over the information you have on the system, and adding all the data you can pull about the interior. It looks like all the exterior doors and windows are alarmed, no big shocker, including the roof access from the helipad. The interior security is light, with carmera's at the major hallway junctions. 4 security guards patrol the interior of the building, all wearing IFF tags to feed constant positions to the security system. One camera appears to focus on a single door. The door shows up on the security system, but only sensors on the locks and the interior of the room, there's no camera inside, and the lock on that particular door can't be accessed from this system.

Irving awakens to the new dawn light and stretches himself slightly, almost tearing the sleeping bag he's in into shreds. He steps out of the bag still stretching out all of his muscles and the rest of his body. Looking at Raton who is still jacked in "Do we have any idea of what we're going in for, or where it is?"

Token accepts Lee's offer to join him, gets his meat bod in a comfortable position and slips from it into astral space. With the watchers and two great form spirits, Token travels the astral to Snohomish and finds some cover to observe what happens. With the spirts well back under cover, Token tells Larry to pass just outside the walls of the estate on his way to a landmark they passed in Renton. Token then moves forward where he can maintian cover and still be able to observe what happens.

Token - As the spirit passes close to the walls, one of the nearby patrol animals starts barking, tugging at it's owners leash and pulling the man towards the wall. The man reaches down, unleashing the collar, and the dog bounds forward, coming up to the wall as the watcher moves by. It jumps it, putting it's front paws up on the edge of the 2m tall wall, and barks rapidly, moving every second or two to keep the watcher in site. The handler turns his head and speaks, following the dog alertly, glancing around for any physical evidence. He follows the dog all the way along the property line until the watcher moves away, the dog settling down and being releashed shortly afterward.

Token calls for Moe, and tells him to go directly over the estate, staying well out of the reach of the dual natured critters on the ground. He tells Moe this is a dangerous assignment and it may be a good idea to head through the wooded part of the estate to lose any pursuit on his way to the landmark Larry is at.

Raton dumps the camera views and sensor data into offline storage, before rezzing out of the slave node.

Back in the host propper, he tries to pull up any data he can find on the layout of the house interrior. Whether or not he succeeds, he logs off and begins the task of compilng a map from the data he recieved.

Raton - You pull several minutes of the camera and sensor feeds down into offline storage. You spend several long seconds searching the host for the files you're looking for, and find a security layout in one of the nodes. You start downloading the file when you sense that same sort of lag that probe IC generates, and you flee halfway through the file. Checking it on your deck, you can see that the files corrupted because you didn't pull it all. It will take some time to fix the file enough to gather what data you did pull down.

Token - The watchers don't seem to notice as Moe goes flying across the property to the appointed rendezvous spot.

Raton - You dive back into the system, familiar now with the tacky house and it's cluttered furnishings. You slide past the locked door into the security information center again, and grab ahold of the roll of paper that represents the layout you're looking for. There's a slight resistance as you tug it free, same as all the rest of the times, but you give the file a jerk and fade the house around you.

The basic search you tossed out in an hour didn't bring up anything. You figure you're going to need to go in depth to get anything useful.

Raton once again surfaces from the Matrix. He shakes his head to clear the cobwebs and looks around for a vid screen. Having located one, he plugs it into his storage memory and finds the data he grabbed, looking displaying the layout. He then takes the security camera and sensor information he had from before and lays it all out on a single image.

"Hey guys, I think I've got the layout," he announces. "And a pretty good guess as to where those boxes are.

Token sets Buck to watch the front guard house. "Count people entering that warded building. Note position of sun when they do. Check if any are magical." He has Eenie count those leaving, noting the position of the sun and if they are magical.

They skirt the estate at a safe distance and Token sets Meenie and Minie to watch the back guard house from a stealthy position. He assigns one for the people entering and one for those leaving.

He then leaves, gathering Larry and Curly along the way and returns to the safehouse.

He'll return in 3 hours to get a report.