"Is there anybody left that wants to take the bus or are you all leaving through the second floor exit? Oh, and by the way, Knight Errant's incoming in about 20 seconds, via drones."

"Yeah... I hear jet engines. We've definitely overstayed our welcome."

Tombstone keeps his shotgun ready, only a slight twitch in his stoic face hinting at his edginess, as he zips up his duffel bag with his free hand, covering Eric as he follows him out.

"Take the bus. Joli's the only one who can make it out the second floor in time."

Outside - Less then ten seconds later the big van comes careening across the torn landscape, weaving in and out of the elementals, burst piping, and scorched ground to come to a screeching halt, sideways, just at the foot of the stairs to the mansion.

"All aboard that's coming aboard!"

Moving quickly as possible, Joli runs down the stairs. As she strides down the stairs, she reaches deep within herself and struggles to push the beast back into the dark corners of her flesh. As she enters the van, her form ripples and once again she is back to her human form. Diving in, she makes a grab for the long coat she left behind as she tosses Sebastian into the back area. He hisses at the rough manner of his arrival as he adjusts mid flight and perches on a seat back. With red burning cheecks she struggles to get as much of herself covered as possible. "I'm in."

Half a step behind Joli, Eric lays in some extra speed and jumps into the van.

Once inside, the English thief takes off his coat and uses it to form an impromptu curtain between the drake and the rest of the team while she becomes modest.

Tombstone piles into the van right after Eric, with his shoulderbag clutched possessively - it holds what they came here for. He can't help the grin that flits across his face... they did it!

The van streaks away across the shattered landscape of the front lawn, bouncing and jostling the riders occasionally as it bounces over a body or a torn up chunk of sod.

A flare of light in the sky above you draws everyone's faces to the window, and a light trail followed by smoke streaks across the sky from somewhere behind the house, headed back towards mainland Seattle. A few moments later, a bright explosion lights the sky for the briefest of instants, and Jester cackles over the internal speakers.

"That should slow things down for a minute!"

___________________________________________

The ride back to Seattle is long and somewhat circuitous, as Jester drives all over the back roads and surface streets of Snohomish, occasionally rolling the van off road to break the transponder trails, or switching transponder codes altogether.

The dull light of dawn is slowly creeping over the horizon as you arrive back at the chosen safehouse.

Taking the duffel bag from Tombstone once they are safely ensconced in the safehouse, Eric goes to work inventorying what they have.

The reluctant leader of this batch, Eric fans through the cash and begins sorting it into stacks for each team-member. After the hard currency was spread out, he begins setting up a satellite connection. Once a clear line was established, the decker goes through a half-dozen shells run by members of the shadow community and verifies the contents of each credstick and whether they are linked to personal accounts or certified.

Finally, all stalling completed, he places the call to the Johnson via his deck and the sat-link. Someone had leaked enough information out to make paranoia fully justified.

He could almost hear the operator at the far end of the line, calling out, "phone call for Mr. Johnson. Mr Johnson, please pick up the white courtesy phone."

Eric dives into the net as the group settles in, sifting through the volumes of transaction data, checking and double checking the sources and connections of each of the credsticks.

Each credstick seems legit, all certified, each containing an organic looking amount, like 23,567::, or 567::. Every trail is well populated with numerous legitimate purchases, some in storefronts, some online, none that would flag the credstick as unusual in any way. All totaled, the credsticks are worth 150,000::

Placing the call to the Johnson, you hear the familiar voice of Yamakazi's assistant pick up the line. He voice warms significantly once you've identified yourself, and he's anxious to set up a time and place for the final exchange.

"Seven in the morning, on the corner of 2nd and Union in downtown. I'll stop into the bakery on the corner and have a muffin and some coffee. A third-party courier would probably be best."

After going through the pleasantries of ending the call, Eric places a call to a cab company requesting a pick-up from the bakery at 7:10 AM. Then before logging out, he prayed. Meeting across the street from the headquarters of Lonestar was dangerous, but as long as he played completely legit everything should be fine. And the heightened security should keep any more leaks in Yamakazi's organization from becoming a problem.

With a graceful logoff, he readies to face his own team.

"Alright folks, because I trust our Johnson as far as I can throw him, the final meet is going to happen downtown where the cops are. I will go alone and unarmed, and make the exchange. From there, I'll have the cabbie drop me off at Greenlake park, and we can go our separate ways until the next job."

Tombstone frowns unhappily.

"That makes sense, but it really goes against my instincts as a bodyguard. Will you at least take one of the awakened people with you, in case they try magic on you? Lone Star may keep them from doing anything overt, but there are lots of subtle ways to knock someone loopy, even without magical control. I'll accept your plan with reservations, but I hope you'll take my advice on bringing magical backup, and I also hope you will have some means of keeping in radio contact with us, so we will know if the deal goes south.

He looks around at the others, including Eric.

"It has been good working with you guys. I probably won't see any of you for at least several months... I'm going to be lying pretty low waiting for the heat from this one to die down."

"My personal Comm may raise some suspicions and the flux probably won't make it to the rest of you due to the highrises downtown. I'll leave my cell phone turned on, no one should look twice at a suit talking to the air.

"For magic, do you want to back me up Joli? We'll have to put you in some nicer clothes. While I'm personally fond of the trenchcoat look, you may raise a few eyebrows amidst the more conservative types. One thing you may be able to do, and no teasing me, but Karl Kombatmage turned his armor into a tuxedo in his last movie. Can you do that?"

It had been a good run, now they just had to live to see the payout.

Joli frowns at the mention of the magic spell. "I really at this point only know how to blow things up so I'll just put on some normal people clothes and come along or be near by if you think I'll stand out too much." She sits on the floor with Sebastian in her lap, absent mindedly scratching behind his head. The dragonette is sprawled out, hissing with pleasure. "But I agree that we should take precautions. We have no idea where the leak is and we got fragged once already with this job."

"Other than the cell phone and some unobtrusive backup, I'm out of ideas. Hopefully, the threat of having the entire Lonestar fleet waiting across the street will delay any negative repsonse."

The sooner this was all over with, the sooner Eric would be able to sleep. Of course he couldn't forget the promises he'd made, there were at least two trips to the pet store in his future, and possibly a trip out to the countryside. Sebastian has earned his keep on this one which meant fresh rabbits. One big and fat one, and probably a small quick one to give him a good hunt.

Of course, everyone knows that all of Lonestar isn't at the headquarters all of the time...

But the bad guys seem to take the hint.

The meet the next morning goes off without a hitch. An anxious looking courier whips up to the coffee shop on some low-slung little piece of two-wheeled jet engine, and double parks illegally. He rushes inside at 7:01, glancing around for a moment with the distracted look of someone accessing headware memory, and then locks eyes with Eric. He sets a small courier bag on the floor next to him as he sits at the table, and slides it over to your feet. He looks at you, disbelief warring with hope somewhere between his face, and you think he may be somewhat worried at the slightly cinematic exchange, going down like a bad sim-flick in a crowded coffee shop stuffed with suits.

Eric hands the courier the case, picks up the bag and heads for the waiting taxi. He holds the door open for Joli and slides in beside her.

Directions are given to the cabbie and Eric looks out the back window regularly to make sure they aren't being followed to Greenlake.

The small bag rattles with the clink of certified cred sticks. The streets behind you, while cluttered with the early morning sararimen traffic, doesn't seem to hold pursuers.

You arrive back at the house with a minimum of effort, and tip the cabbie.

Checking the bag, you see there is a trio of credsticks for each member. Each credstick holds 43,333 nuyen, bringing the total per person up to 129,999 nuyen. A quick check reveals the sticks apparently are valid, and no bombs or other electronics.

"Alright folks, it looks like they shorted each of us 1 nuyen. Given the circumstances and the extra currency we found, I'm willing to let it slide and go home. Your choices may vary, but leave me out of it."

Eric passes the money out to his companions and confers with Sebastian and Joli about the best time for his trip to the market.

She probably doesn't agree with my methods, but he earned his keep and giving him a cut of the loot probably wouldn't work well.

Side business wrapped up, the thief waits to see if anyone has any parting words before they scatter across the winds for the time being.

Taking the credstick and gathering up her bag, Joli pauses to make arrangements with Eric for Sebastian's cut. She tries to hide her reluctance to give him raw meat but in the end it's better the cats and dogs in the area being on the menu. "Good working with you all and maybe I'll see you again." With that said she leaves.