Jack finishes off a small carboard container of noodles, tosses the plastic fork in the dish, and looks to Nanashi and Trixie.

"Ya'll ready for a little fun?" he asks, drawl obvious and typical grin on his lips.

Trixie nods. "Yeah, lets do this."

"I'm set." Nanashi replied, adding yet another half empty takeout box to the collection scattered around the room. One of these days he was actually going to have to get around to cleaning the place up. Perhaps when they got back.

Deckers:
Bracing for the upcoming expedition, each of you gets comfortable before plugging into the spliced cable. Slowly Nanashi and Jack run through a series of checks on their decks to make sure all the utilities are loaded, once they are satisfied both deckers log in to the sattelite grid. Trixie takes a deep breath before plugging in the cable.

Welcome to NewsNet, the sattelite network for all your information needs.

Universal matrix iconography clearly delineates incoming traffic from the lines that you need to take to drop down through the digital horizon and into the cities below. You all catch a ride on a news packet that is being sent out to a daily journal in Japan, from there it's a quick jaunt out to Hong Kong for a shower and to drop the bags of information that each host passes on in your wake.

Approaching the central core of the Tokyo RTG, universal icons give way to sculpted systems as buildings spring out of the ground. You stand in front of the Renraku Arcology host, a massive building that is fortified sectionally and is designed to allow pieces to be shutdown with minimal loss to system integrity.

The help desk still has lines of people out the door and milling around the outside in a perpetual queue that seems to only grow as more people arrive with help requests and a few individuals trickle out of the building before fading into nothingness as they log off.

Jack, in his sharp angled virtual cowboy persona, digital duster flapping, stretches clenched hands out in front of him, cracking his knuckles. He glances to both Nanashi and Trixie, and reaches into an inner pocket in the duster, whipping out a loose bundle of...wool? He drapes it over himself, and it's obvious a moment later that it's a sheepskin. He gives the other two a grin before moving up to slip into the flow of people moving into the building.

Donovan takes a watch position from which he can oberve the room and the three deckers astrally, making sure that any spiritual threats or ASIST attacks will be detected by himself, hopefully with enough time to act and prevent any serious harm.

Another job, another moment of boredom.. I hope this pans out peacefully.

Trixie follows closely behind Jack while keeping an eye on Nanashi.

As Jack donned his sheepskin, Nanashi likewise enabled his deception, putting on a decrative Noh mask as he followed the others further into the system.

Deckers:
Entering the system, there is a momentary hush while you wait for the IC to break through the walls and tear your minds apart. Not sensing anything moving in the hallway, Trixie leads the way down the hallway to a door marked "Private".

Trixie opens the door and steps through to the next host.

Jack follows, tugging the sheepskin closer around him.

Nanashi follows the others, hoping that he wouldn't bring down trouble on the more dedicated decker and otaku.

Deckers:

You cross the line between hosts. The floor around you ripples with security sensors and you can see counter-measures powered down resting in the distance. No alarms yet, but you can only imagine how ugly this would get if you weren't careful.

Three doors lead out of this room, the center one has the personnel files you need. The others hold portentous offerings.

Hmm...three doors, three deckers/otaku. "So...split up or stick together?" he asked.

Trixie points to the middle door, "That's where we'll find the data. And we stick together. If one of us gets in trouble, we'll be able to back each other up."

Before stepping through the door, Trixie takes a careful look around.

Trixie:
The world as you know it melts away, revealing the cold, harsh code of the host. Here is where the spirits of the matrix breathe life into their progeny, nestled under the facade masking knowledge from the uninitiated. Your data trail is tied up in the workings of the system, inextricably linking you to untold naughtiness.

Jack tugs the sheepskin that represents his Deception program a little tighter and nods, reaching out to open the door and slide into the next host as well.

"Wasn't that keen on heading off on my own anyways." Nanashi commented as he followed the others into the next tier.

Deckers:
Each of you carefully glides through into the next system, doing your best to minimize the trail that your passing leaves in the host. The room appears as an old fashioned card catalog, indexing the various files stored within. Now you need to find the files that are worth something on the shadow market and sort them out from the rest.

A ripple in your peripheral vision lets you know that you aren't alone. A figure in red traditional samurai armor carries a smooth and polished daikyu. The armor is fairly concealing but there is a grace and presence to her in this place that carries across the digital arena. She turns to you and bows curtly.

Jack curses quietly under his breath, producing an odd device into his hand and pointing it in the direction of the samurai. It beeps several times and he looks down at it, already reaching for the pistol at his side.

Jack:
The handheld scanner whirs and beeps, little colors flashing across your face from the display. Reporting back to you that the Samurai is an authorized user, the device folds itself back up and flutters back into your coat pocket to give you a free hand.

Deckers:
"What are you doing here? This is a secured system, transmit access codes now or log out."

The woman places an arrow into the huge recurved bow. It is still aimed to the ground without any pull, but you can almost imagine it punching straight through your icon spreading digital bits of you across the card catalogs.

Click Clack, for the twentieth time since the Deckers went under Jester checked the action on his UMP.

"Nothing worse then waiting in this biz. How about a little recon everyone, I'll hop back in the drone and check the rooftops, Donovan you do the astral thing and Callisto you hit the bricks. Hows that sound?"

Donovan says, "I think I'll stay here and keep an eye on the astral plane locally, like I've been doing. Shedims are a new phenomenon. Their arrival coincides with the comet. I don't know much about them; haven't had a chance to finish reading up on them yet with the work I do at the university. I know enough about them though to know that leaving my body unattended might not be a good idea, even with the ward Nanashi and I have put up.

"Besides, I know a Heal spell that I can use on one of our friends here if it should become necessary to yank them offline because they are being brutalized by some black IC or the like."

Trixie turns to Jack, "Give the woman our papers. I'll call this in and report the hold-up."

Trixie pulls out a cell phone and places a call through to Jester, bouncing the call around the subhost to confuse any tracing. "Yes sir, we're getting held up by sone security personel here... I'm not sure, hold a moment and I'll ask."

She turns to the Red Samurai and asks curtly, "Name, rank, and SIN please."

Calisto turns towards Jester. "I'm fine with doing something but what exactly are we looking for?"

"I don't know, assassins? We seem to attract a lot of them. Maybe something just out of the ordinary."

Jack reaches deep into a pocket of the leather duster and pulls forth 3 old-style leather patches with gold stars on them. They proclaim the 3 as legitimate security consultants researching recent incursions into the Renraku system.

Deckers:
"I don't have to answer any ques--"

The woman stops in mid-sentence as she sees the stars in Jack's hands. They transform to sheafs of parchment with ancient Japanese calligraphy on them as she takes tham and examines the files.

"My apologies, as you are well aware, there have been several incursions on this host recently and I was uninformed that you would be here so quickly. Please carry on with your investigation."

The Security Decker's bow vanishes from her hands and she continues her patrol vanishing into other subsystems.

Trixie looks sideways at Jack and Nanashi, "Nice work. Come on, lets get this over with."

Trixie brings up a file catalog and scrolls through it, searching out the data she requires.

Trixie:
The card catalog is neatly arranged and you quickly find the card that you need and can feel the file waiting at the other end of a mental command. There is a sound of metal biting into wood as three shurikens connect with the indexing system. Stepping out of the folds of the host, a ninja appears, three more shurikens in one hand, a straight bladed ninjato in the other.

Jester:
There are days when you curse yourself for allowing them to strap several pounds of steel and silicon on to your body. The doctors never seemed to be able to get the systems to synch up just right and the connection still rubs raw whenever you aren't careful to take care of the flesh on the border of skin and circuitry. Propping your leg up on some of the cushions behind your nest of furniture, there is a moment of envy when you look over at the prosaic, relaxed postures of each decker.

Pulling the RC deck out of its hidden compartment, you give the palm-sized controller a cursory once over. It had never left your possession, but better to be safe than sorry in this business. Assured that no one has added any additional components to assist in hijacking your network, you slide the cable into the well-worn connection and slide into the command chair.

Simulated sensations of a key turning in your hand and the vibration which accompanies any strong motor ride through your body. The Marauder breathes back to life under your gentle touch. The sensors open themselves to your mind, not reaching out to scour the alleyway with electrons, but simply supplying a passive view of the two gangers rolling small nicosticks towards the edge of the street. Within another moment they are on their way without a backward glance at the Opel. Electric engines always had a quiet purr.

The van pulls out into the fairly light traffic of mid-evening. You take a few turns around the block just to bring the battery back up to full before pulling into the alley. With the Firebat prepped for launch, you hand control over to automated systems and watch the rotordrone clear the top of the van. The rifle swivels and turns, the same way a person waking up from a long sleep stretches his arms.

All systems go.

A wary mother, the van limits its energy expenditures but keeps a quiet watch on the awkward adolescent that weaves and soars away into the night.

With a quick flip of the switch you are in the machine, feeling the smooth wood of the rifle resting in your hand and the wind on your face. Heightened sensations reach out to spy a pack of chip heads picking up a week's worth of snacks from a convenience store before settling back into their flophouse.

No assassins lurk in the shadowy corners of the tenements and you realize that the mostly deadly person within five miles is less than ten feet from your own body. Luckily, Calisto likes you or at least doesn't have a contract to kill you.

Recon complete, the Firebat swoops back to the warm arms of the Marauder. Both vehicles lock back down and disengage their engines until your next call.

Trixie:
Without wasting the time to fully immerse yourself in the Code, you tear a small slash in the air in front of you revealing a harsh and cruel purpose to the Ninja's nature. The sole reason for its existence is to destroy Icons and force them off line, a task which it seems to relish in and has learned ways to improve its efficacy.

With malicious intent, you focus closely on the subcomponents that hold the representation of the Ninja together and begin to unravel them. Wounds burst out on its body. A second wave of mental force is all it takes to make it dissipate entirely.

Trixie bends down where the Ninja had blown away into dust and picks up its Ninjato, stashing it in her long coat. She glances at her two companions, "I have a bead on the file, lets move."

She makes her way through the host, tracking the file as quickly as she can, making sure to keep her 'eyes' pealed as she moves.

Deckers:
The card flutters in front of Trixie and slowly becomes a small butterfly. It dips and weaves, color filling in along its wings with each beat forward. You feel the massive archives sweep past you, following the connection to its root. Finally, your trio arrives at a dead-end with the columns of information climbing up to the distant roof above. Racks of scrolls lay rolled up piled one upon another.

Trixie looks over the scrolls, trying to see which is the one she is here for and scanning for any databombs or other traps. "It should be here, Jack, can you copy the file? I'll do a sweep for any other paydata on the host. Nanashi, watch out backs for us."

When the killer IC popped up, Nanashi barely had time to notice it before Trixie had dispatched it. He hadn't doubted her abilities, but it was something else to actually see her in action. Knowing that where there was one IC, there was likely more, he kept a keen eye out as he followed the otaku to the treasure trove of data.

"You got it." he responded when assigned to guard duty, drawing his katana as he turned to watch the passage way behind them for any further attacks.

Trixie:
The file you need is easy enough to find. It embodies a set of scrolls, resting as the keystone to an intricate design of other pieces. Leaning forward, your breath brings a quiver from the stack of scrolls. Any minor adjustment would be enough to bring the entire archive crashing down.

Trixie frowns at the files, then turns back to Jack, "Batabombed and Encrypted. How is your Defuse and Decrypt, cause it ain't my strongest point."

She then sniffs the air, trying to catch the scent of paydirt.

Deckers:
"Ah'll see what I can do."

Jack reaches into the immense pockets of his coat and shifts his weight slightly before righting himself. When he pulls his hands back out of his pocket there is a well-oiled leather roll. The Cyber cowboy spreads it out before, willing a small table into existence to hold the tools. Setting himself to work at defusing the databomb, he examines the network of strings and pins designed to crash the library and bury anyone unfortunate enough to be around with it.

The bomb quivers as he cuts the first string, weaving itself back together as he moves on to the next step. Luckily, Jack notices in time and snips the line a second time before following the careful procedures that he has learned over the years.

Sliding the scroll out of the scroll case, there's no explosion or crash. The databomb had been removed.

Calisto clears out a small space to the side of the living room. She stretches and loosens up her body. She moves through the breathing excerises, first calming herself then flooding her body with focus and energy. She begins the slow process of moving her body through the stances and strikes. She makes sure every move is perfect before advancing to the next. She sinks into the void of the precision and the need for nothing else to exist. She soons reaches the place she sought. The seperation of body from mind, it has fallen into the routine and now moves through the muscle memory of it.

So here I am, watching a bunch of deckers as they scrounge up pay data so we can capture an AI. Not my best job to date but certainly the strangest.

Deckers:
With the databomb defused, Jack goes to work decrypting the file. He places the scroll on the same table that had been pulled into existence to hold his tools and pulls out a rough dictionary entitled "Cypher to Script". Moving line by line, the rough splatters of ink coalesce into readable text. The file appears to be a full simsense recording.

Trixie:
Calling out to the world around you, the resounding echo of paydata thunders out fo the file Jack is working on. Nothing else in this section of the host resonates on quite the same level.

Satisfied that they've got all they can from this host, Trixie join Nanashi on watch duty, making sure that if something comes out of the woodworks, Jack won't be interupted.

Jack breathes a quick sigh of relief and starts feeding the scroll into a deep pocket on the trench coat.

Deckers:
Tense seconds count by. When the scroll is about halfway through, there is a creaking sound at the end of the hall and three samurais enter the library. Each is fully armored from head to toe carrying matching katanas.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?"

Trixie whirls around to face the samurai and as she does so, her clothing shifts to match their own armor. A long Katana materializes in her hands that she holds out in front of her. "Ready yourself Nanashi, we must defend Jack."

She charges.

"Was starting to think this was going to be boring." Nanashi commented as he joined Trixie in the offensive, his golden armor standing out in the crowd.

Trixie slashes her katana out at the middle security decker, then sets herself on the defence, ready to parry.

Entering the fray, Nanashi engaged another opponent, then set to parry. Hopefully this offensive wouldn't set the whole system on it's ear before they were ready to leave.

Deckers:
Moving with simple grace, Trixie slides forward with her blade slashing out in front of her. The blade digs deep into the armor and comes away with a swift flick of the wrist.

Nanashi steps forward to meet another samurai. Golden armor gleaming against the bloody violent color of the system security deckers. Steel clashes with advanced polymer resins leaving a gouge on the red veneer. Beneath the red, a pale silver light glows out of the armor. He is barely able to drop back into the guard position before the samurai returns the vicious attack.

The Apartment:
Neural impulses fire and Nanashi's body writhes for a second. No bruises form, but deep within his mind grows a spot of darkness to astral sight.

Donovan moves over to Nanashi to inspect the darkened area that has shown up in his aura.

"Hm.. They've run into trouble, I think."