So here you sit, strapped to a chair that's travelling nearly the speed of sound, everything dark but for the red lights of some guages and displays. You're going on a trip of indeterminate length, and you've got everything you'll expect to need on you.

The red lights betray the presence of six people. An elf with green dredlocks and tattooes poking out of a sleevless t-shirt is idly playing with one of his several facial piercings sits chewing on his fingernails while a skinny guy with brilliantly green eyes is checking the filter on his gas mask. An older runner with a vicious looking scar on his face holds a sword on his lap, staring straight across to a dwarf with an equally vicious looking scar in almost the very same spot. Presumably this is a coincidence. In the back, the two females are strapped in side-by-side. One is a dark-haired woman with a brown fedora topping off a classic brown trenchcoat, the kind you can't buy in stores anymore. The other is wearing the classic leathers of a Leather Devil, in duster form, as well as a deep hood hiding most of her features. Despite this, you do notice a classic devil-like balance tail crammed uncomfortingly behind her.

Jackal broods silently about the mission, idly wondering what he's going to do with the jackpot awaiting him back in Seattle if he should survive this one. Probably going to stuff it in some sort of bank and let it grow fat on interest. It's not like he needs the money...if his reckless lifestyle doesn't claim him, he might withdraw it sometime in the far future when he's too old to live life on the edge.

Trailing a finger down the scar running down his face, Jackal wonders whether or not fate will bring him the kid who was responsible for it in the forsaken city he was flying straight into right now. Truth is, he doesn't know what he will do if or when he finds him. Probably not kill him...maybe rough him up a little, teach him what a bad idea it is for a spoiled little punk ass to play dirty in streets that can eat him alive and spit his bones back out to rot.

Shaking his head to clear out his thoughts, Jackal studies the crew assembled inside the T-Bird. These are the people to whom he is going to have to trust his back inside the belly of the beast. If things get shot to hell, these people will be the ones taking the fire alongside him. Might as well get to know them. Wouldn't hurt to introduce himself politely...make a good first impression.

"Name's Jackal. Who the bloody hell are you guys?"

Half a mil. Boingo still couldn't get over the number. Hell, it'd taken all his effort not to just call up his parole officer and tell him where to stick it. Thanks be to Xion, though, for covering. Provided he remembers the tapes, everything should run smoothly on that end. Sure, he'd be coming back with blood on his hands, but it's nothing new. The corporate types deserve it anyway, for their treading upon those who have not.

Regardless, Boingo's reflection is cut off by the dwarf's introduction, and the elf kid turns his gaze to the gruff one.

`Name's Boingo.`

He's not sure what else to say. Hell, next to the others he can't exactly call himself muscle.

Weasel finishes screwing the filter back into his mask, and then brushes his hair back, slides it on, and tightens the rubber straps. He lifts his head up and looks at everyone. Then he tilts his head back against the bulkhead, and shuts his eyes. After a couple moments of introspection, he decides to answer Jackal's question.

"M'name's Weasel. I blow shit up."

Mary's hands cupped her face, brushing away the long black-brown locks of hair trailing down from her fedora. Her gloved hands were shaking as she bit on a fag and lit the smoke. She inhaled a few times and her hands gradually stopped shaking. She slid her lighter and what remained of her smokes back into her coat pocket. What would they do to her if they knew she smuggled some onboard a flight?

Her mind was far away, on her children, wondering how they would look like today - if they would even recognize their mother anymore. And she wondered how her former husband was doing. The bastard ran away with a blonde elf and her kids, but despite being understandibly bitter about it, Mary still loved him. He may have been a bastard, but he sure was an adorable one. What she had received in payment up front was already willed to go straight to them.

She felt the jitters come on again and inhaled deeper, forcing the compulsions back. She knew, just knew, that she wouldn't come back from this job. It's all her pessimistic, self-defeating attitude ever told her, but this one was evil, pure evil. Nobody offers half a million to an unknown, insignificant person like her and she knew this was a trap, or a suicide mission. Either way, her smokes definately wouldn't be the end of her.

Mary stared at the steel floor of the aircraft, lost in her own thoughts. If this was indeed a trap, how would things end up for her? Bullets? Mines? Spells? Prison? Torture? Experimentation?

She looked up slightly, her leather hat and flowing strands of hair still blocking most of her brown eyes, but she could just feel people staring at her after they've introduced themselves.

"My name's Madeline. Call me Mary." She mutters in her smooth, low-pitched voice. "I'm a forensic mage and detective. Any of you want a smoke?"

Sharp's never been one for flight. Born in Seattle, raised in Seattle, had kids and worked in Seattle, and all that was under the sweet sovereignty of gravity. It's an old-fashioned notion, but if men were meant to fly, they would have been born with wings on their asses. He concentrates on not throwing up. These kids he's heading to Denver with seem like they're hard to impress, and he'll have an uphill battle already without yarking all over his shoes.

The elf with the dreads, Boingo, looks like he's Esther's age, and he wonders if he knows her. Sharp looks at the tattoo on his own arm of his oldest daughter's name. Runs his thumb across it. Some days he misses her, regardless of how good she is in the shadows.

Admittedly, he's comforted by the dwarf across from him. Something about dwarves has always struck him as reliable and helpful, probably all the old flicks he watched when he was a kid. The little stalwart guy always coming through in a pinch. Frodo. R2D2. He'll keep these ideas to himself.

Sharp hears the offer for a smoke from the back of the T-Bird, and unstraps himself immediately. "I'll take one," he says. standing up. "I haven't smoked since 1904, but it seems like a nice time to start up again."

He hopes that's funny. It looks like it could be a tough room.

Jackal also accepts a cigarette from Mary, sticking it at the corner of his mouth and setting the tip ablaze with a butane lighter he produced from the depths of his pockets. He inhales strongly, feeling the smoke fill the back of his throat with a hot, tingling sensation. Blowing it out of his nostrils after a few seconds, he watches dispassionately as it mixes homogenously with the air in front of his face, and gives the woman a nod of gratitude.

"My thanks, missie."

Not one for small talk, Jackal leans back against his seat and closes his eyes, his immediate attention occupied only by his thoughts and the cig between his teeth.

Kirst hated sitting for long periods. It cramped her tail and occasionally gave a bit of neural feedback, therefore making it impossible to sleep. So she just sat and wondered about what she's going to do with her half mil. "I've never even held anymore than a 50 thousand on one cred-stick, but a half a million?......." she thought. Even back when she was with the Devils, she hadn't been able to comprehend that much on one person. She looked around the aircrafts cabin from underneith her hood. The light wasn't the greatest, but she could still make out the others in the room. The old addage 'First impressions are the lasting impressions" didnt sit well with her. Anyone who saw her when she was with the devils would think shes just another gang bimbo....that is until they saw her monosword pointing inches away from their jugulars. Because of that she wanted to wait until they met with Mr. Johnson to really see what everyone was like. "Well" she thought "might as well make an introduction if I'm going to be working with 'em"

"Names Kirst. Thats about it.....see you all when we land, I guess." she said after abit of a silent pause from the others.

"If only those Devils could see me now....." she thought to herself as she slid one of her more favorite BTLs into her chipjack and faded off into oblivion. She didn't think about what lay ahead of her in Denver at the moment, and her little collection of chips made forgetting all the easier.

Shaken up by the girl, Kirst she said her name was, who just slotted a BTL chip, Sharp wonders if he's going into hell with a ragtag group of punks and junkies. For 500 grand, you'd think the professionals would be coming out of the woodwork. Why pick Mr. Piercing, a guy who introduces himself as "blowing shit up," and a washed up never was?

The job iddn't sound bad at first, but now the money, the roster, and the relatively unassuming target of an info brokerage... it wasn't adding up.

Sharp decides to make friends with that dwarf. He wants someone on this flight he can trust to watch his back, and that gruff man seems just the ticket. The fedora with the smokes doesn't seem so bad either. Plus, same name as his daughter, the good one, so it has to be a positive omen.

Stomping the cigarette out on the floor, Sharp nods at Jackal and signals at his own scar. "I see you and I may have the same quack plastic surgeon. I'm Sharp, by the way." Sharp extends his hand for a shake.

Jackal studies the man across from him for a few second, then reaches forth to grip his hand with his own, giving it two solid pumps. He nods at the sword on his lap.

"I can see where you got your name," he replies. "By the way, mine wasn't done by a surgeon."

Sharp smiles. "The kid who did mine wasn't a surgeon, either. In fact, I'd say his experience with a blade might have added up to a few tough steak dinners, but not much more."

He pauses.

"Luck's a bitch, but it taught me to never take myself too seriously."

The landing is rough and jagged, landing somewhere in an abandoned field in the CAS sector, from what the pilot says. He's on the ground for a grand total of fourty-five seconds before taking off again, distorting the air with his heat signature. Looking at that, you wonder how you weren't caught by some kind of nasty missile with the words 'Sweet Warmth' etched on it.

According to the pilot, again, just over the ridge to your left is a highway and a motel. He's right, but it's a deceptivly long walk, during which pre-dawn turns into dawn, and very nearly post-dawn. The view over the ridge has all the same sorts of building you're used to, but everything seems a little more... je ne sais quoi. Some would say less superficial. Others would say dirtier. Dodging a little traffic on the highway, you get to the hotel.

It's a flop, as you probably expected. Two rooms, four beds, a door between then. Cable TV, a mini-fridge, a pool that smells like chemicals and a strip that says 'sanitized for your protection' on the toilet. You're on the second floor, with a balcony shared with everyone else, overlooking the parking lot.

You stretch and drop your bags.

Now: Different city, things to accomplish. How to proceed...?

Boingo shelters his face from the backwash of exhaust from the departing T-Bird, and he looks over the immediate area. Hell, it looks like home to him. As they progress, he can feel the difference in elevation, and he decides to take it easy for a bit, to conserve his energy. Never know what lies ahead, and he doesn't want to get jumped while trying to catch his breath.

Their arrival at the hotel prompts another 'just like home' response in his head. The difference here is now he's got cable, and he's fairly sure his neighbors aren't going to break out into random firefights. Having no bag to shed, Boingo moves to stretch out on a bed.

`So... we ready to get planning this deal?`

"Sounds good to me," Sharp says, creaking into one of the cheap room chairs.

"I've never been one to go into something without knowing my way out first. We should look for that 'discreet' pick-up point before we upset or shoot anybody."

Jackal shrugs indifferently. "Sure, why not. We could rent a car or something while we're sightseeing around town. Having a fast set of wheels might be useful if or when the drek hits the fan."

Mary sat down on one of the beds as the others planned their next actions. She reached in a coat pocket of her trenchcoat and pulled out a tourist's brochure as well as a map she had picked up from a travel agency back in Seattle. Remaining silent, she spread the map out on the bed and pursed her fingers through the brochure.

"A military base." She finally spoke up, though to no one in particular. "I wonder where it is...is it on the map?" She wondered aloud, looking through the both of them. "We know so little of what's going on, or where and how far away our job is."

Weasel strips off his trenchcoat, and tosses it onto a bed, revealing a skin-tight PVC shirt.

"This military base probably won't be on the map.", he says, as he unstraps his gas mask. He then drops it onto his trenchcoat.

"I'd be up for renting a car."

The rrom smelt of mildew, human excrement, old fuel and ozone. Felt just like home, Kirst thought. She leaned against the door frame to the "washroom", using the term loosely. She pulled back her hood revealing her red tinged skin and devil horns protruding from her forehead. She pulled a cigarette out of her pocket and lit up.

"Well, before we spend any nuyen and leave a trail, mind if I try some of my devil contacts here? I might be able to swindle something of the four wheeled variety that'll fit all of us...."

Mary looked up from her maps and at Weasel, considering his words. She eventually sighed and got off the bed, leaving the maps spread open there. "That does makes sense." She nods slowly at Weasel. "I'll see if the city can tell me, then. I won't be long, fellas."

She lit another cigarette on the way down, walking casually to the back of the cheap motel. There she found a quiet, shaded spot amongst two buildings; nice, cozy and not reeking too much of trash.

She smiled softly, and sat down on an upturned dustbin and closed her eyes to concentrate. When she opened them again, a tiny little dumpster was floating in mid-air in front of her, chirping away surreally.

"Hey, little guy." She pat the floating spirit with a gloved hand. "Can you direct me to somewhere...?"

Weasel turns a smirk.

"Devil contacts? Well, I'll go procure us a goat for sacrificing..."

Boingo considers and hops up off the bed.

`Well, since this contact stuff might take a while, anyone else hungry? I'm damn hungry... wonder if they have a Stuffer Shack near here... I think I'm gonna go get something. Anyone else got anything they want?`

He's already half out the door by the time he asks.

The little dumpster chirps once more and then drops into a deeper, but no less playful voice. "Certainly, just step into my office and we will see what can be done..." With that, it stays exactly where it is and gives a curious look.

As much as a dumpster can give a curious look.

"I like Kirst's idea of papertrail-free wheels," Sharp says. "Besides, I doubt any of us with our scars and horns and you know... little garbage demons... are going to yank any post 2010 car from Enterprise's clutches."

"I say punch that call to the Devils in. Might try for two sedans or one van. Or hell if you can get all three, I got no complaints for that either. "

Message Deleted.

So Kirst left the room in search of a phone or something of the like. Finally after a few minutes of walking she finds one between a tipped over porta potty and the rusted remains of a backhoe.

After she was finished she headed back to the motel and waited infront for their newish ride to arrive. A good 45 minutes later she heard a low rumbling coming from down the highway syncopated by the occasional backfire. The van pulled up and had an entourage of 2 beefy looking bikers in Red Devils dusters. A man got out, limped towards her and said "Don't 'urt my baby. She might not be purdy, but dont abuse 'er, eh?" With that he got onto the back of one of the choppers and soon was just a shimmering mirage in the distance.

SHe headed back up to the room and said, "The cabs' here. Anyone rigged to drive this beast, or am I going to have to do it the old fashioned way?"

Weasel raises his hand.

"Uh...I'm not rigged, but I like to think I'm a pretty damn good driver."

Jackal shakes his head. "Not me. I only drive two-wheelers."

Kirst raises her hand. "All in favor? Aye."

"Fine by me."

Weasel shrugs.

"I'm not against me driving."

"So long as the 'shit you blow up' doesn't include your passengers, I'm cool with it."

"Let's get a feel for this place, find our discreet pick up, then swing on by that brokerage."

"Oh, and while I think about it, it may not be such a good idea for all of us to go. Just in case we pique some attention, it would do us some good not having all of our faces on a wanted list."

"Sound good?" Sharp asks.

"You're not suggesting we hit the brokerage today? After that long flight and long walk?", Weasel says, shaking his head.

"And tell you what. I'll stay here, the rest of you go check out the pickup."

"No. I figured we'd drive by, check the terrain, count the guard dogs and goons. I'd like to know what we're walking into before we walk into it setting off metal detectors."

"Oh good. For a minute there, I thought you were insane."

"I think its safe to say that this entire run is insane."

`Insane? Hell, I'm willing to endure a little insane for half a mil...`

Boingo hasn't caught the whole convo, but he's there now, arms laden with Stuffer Shack goodies.

`And food to go, got enough for everyone...`

Mary frowns as the spirit confers it's news. No military precense in the city, and someone named Ghostwalker takes care of that. If this was a trap, it was becoming more and more ominous by the hour. She dismissed the spirit, knowing that walking back into the house would cross the path of the spirit world's domains.

"Bad news, everybody." She says as she re-enters the apartment, tossing her spent cigerette into the waste bin nearby. "The city says there are no military bases here. If the city says that, then...we're either on a wild goose hunt, or we've been set up somehow."

Weasel looks up from the bag of chips he got off Boingo.

"Maybe it ain't in Denver city. Maybe it's further out...in some wilderness or something."

Jackal raises an eyebrow as Mary makes her announcement.

"The hell? Did you make sure that 'the city' knows we're looking for a defunct military base instead of an active one?"

"Or maybe the city lied. Cities are decietful places, full of danger...and stuff."

Mary took in the replies without so much as raising an eyebrow, an unreadable, expressionless look on her face. She finally dug her hands into her pockets and turned around, taking off her fedora and laying it on the bed nearby.

"I'll go and doublecheck. Won't be long."

Weasel takes a swig of his aztech-cola.

"Have fun."

Boingo didn't comment about the fact that cities lied. He knew they told more truths than most people ever bothered to pay attention to. But try and get that across without seeming insane.

Instead he was happy to drink his Bawlz, and chow down on some Stuffer Shack noodles.

Tail twitching, head throbbing, and her stomach grumbling, Kirst paced back and forth in the room. 'No military bases...Not even a defunct one probably...' she thought. She shared the same thought that was going through everyone elses head that this was seeming more and more like trap every minute.

"Well, we could try asking around in the local Shadow community"

"Man, quit freaking out. I know its paranoia helps you live, but damn...why the hell would they get 6 strangers, point them to a base that doesn't exist, all for the purpose of killing them?", Weasel says, shaking his head.

"If they were going to lead us here under false premises, lying about something as major as say, the existence of the place we're supposed go seems a bit risky. What I think it is, is that Mary couldn't find it, and she just arrogantly assumes that because of this, it must not exist."

"Like I said, who puts a military base in the city? You know why Area 51 was in the desert? So no one would go there. What's more suspicious, civilians near a military base in the goddamn town square, or civilians near a military base in the middle of the woods. It helps security."

"But if everyone's going to be so freaked out, we may as well just leave now because it'll throw off the whole job."

Boingo puts his hand up after a moment, more as an attention grabber.

`Uh, anyone considered maybe it's not in the woods or anything, but in one of the towns or slums around the city...`

"Aren't we forgetting sometihng here? The place we're looking for isn't a miltary base anymore. Its not even an abandoned one. Its an info-brokerage working out of the former UCAS property. Lets try that lead instead?"

Mary returns from her consultation with another denizen of the trash realm, and walks in with a smile on her face.

"You were right. There are two out of commission military bases and one out of commission military acadamy. One base and the acadamy are in the UCAS sector, and one base is in the Pueblo Sector. I've got the addresses. While I'm here, anybody want me to ask the city anything else in particular?"

"Yeah, ask it where I can get some good vodka. Not the cheap synth crap, the real stuff."