Ms. Johnson smiled at the man. A smile contrary to everything the rest of her said. If looks could kill, he would've been a pool of blood on the ground by now, but he seemed oblivious to it.

Either that's the stereotype of the dumb tourist, or Wraith is up to his usual tricks to annoy me. Ah well, random tourist filming random person weeks before anything happens.

Judging the man before her to be japanese, she elected to answer in the same language. She kept it short and precise. She had no intention of being dragged into a long talk.

"Waiting for a business associate to show."

The asian bows to her and then winks, his voice changing from that of a Japanese man trying to passibly speak french, to that of Wraith, "Then lets get started, shall we? Use standard comm gamma."

His voice instantly shifts back to that of the asian accent, "I hear day have some Master works inside, perhaps I see you again sometime."

Over the comms, "You with me?"

"That was entirely unnecessary, not to mention embarrasing to both of us. Come on, we'll have to wait ages to get through this queue. I fully intend to have this place mapped out before dinner."

With that, she made her way towards the entrance, not looking if Wraith - or whatever he looked like now - followed. She figured he would, and looking after a random tourist would just make even more of a scene than they already had.

Inside the Louvre:
Thousands of people pass through the doors to the Louvre everyday, you blend in to the mixed crowd easily enough. Passing through the lobby, it is easy enough to get swept up into the mass of people who seem to blindly pass by collections of art that stack up into the hundreds of millions. They don't even seemt o give a glance at the various paintings and sculptures that are lining the corridors between the massive entrance and the Master's collection.

The Mona Lisa smiles down upon you as you enter the room, pressed tightly against the unwashed masses. In her traditional viewing room, Da Vinci's masterpiece has been elevated an extra five feet to place her in a position of preeminence over the rest of the collection. Passing through the room a few cameras are immediately evident mixed in with the standard pressure plates and wire alarms that are standard in museums around the world.

Wraith:
Security systems abound, throughout the entire Louvre. Gates designed to drop down from the cieling or press out from the walls to slow passage through the museum at night and create chokepoints rest behind tapestries. Other systems, you've only heard about in rumors of shadowtalk.

Noire watches the two leave the Grotto, once he believes theyre past the outer doors he stands and walks casually to the bar." Jezeel, i need a secure line." He speaks softly to the woman behind the bar. She coolly replies." Need to rent a hot deck also?" "No, nothing of that sort. Just home work i'd rather not see get back to me." Noire slides a certified credstick her way. Jezeel picks it up and satisified with the amount, nods her head. Noire walks past the bar and the facilities to the pay dataterminal on the old stone wall. Noire looks over his shoulder before pushing the button hiden behind the dataterminal. The wall opens up with a hiss as the hydralic pistons release their pressure. Once inside the doors reset with a groan.


Before Noire is what appears to be an ancient switch board, that covers the entire back wall. The plugs and adapters have been up dated, with modern accessories to include led lights that signal safe, suspect, and comprimised. Jezeel
and her crew seem to be slacking on their upkeep of new dataline taps as, alot of red is showing along with yellow. Noire sits and before jacking into the cyberterminal hooks it up to a green line.

The world goes black and spotty as electricity is converted into nueral impulses that the mind can understand. Noire stands in a neon grid world, and thinks to himself how much standard UMS code sucks. Noire begins his search... now which paper or database has the best coverage on the Louve?

Loki:
The constant use of your magical gifts is taxing on the body, but you push on with a singular sense of purpose. You remember that certain parts of the Louvre are still intact from the medieval period. Narrowing your search you are able to find a passage that got bricked over when the metro line got put in. Following the path with your mind, you find that it shares a common wall with an access tunnel. It would only take a few minor charges to weaken the wall enough to allow for your team to get in that way.

Excellently done, every alternative we can find increases chances of success. Loki tracks his position, and then heads to the surface. Not bad for 3 days of laboring, multiple escape routes have been laid out, as well as a feasably reasonable entry location. He waits til he gets to his room, and makes a secure call to Ariel to meet up for lunch.

Team:
Hours slide by and you all meet up at the Cafe Parisian to compare notes. Ariel informs you that Loki is working on a research angle that may take some time but he is conferenced into the meeting via cellphone.

Glancing out the third floor window of the cafe's private room, you are able to see the great obelisk of Place de la Concorde and the glass pyramid of the Louvre beyond.

"Lets start with the bassics, Wraith, Mai, what did you find?"

Wraith sits up straight. "I got a lot... and I mean a lot. This place is one of the best guarded facilities I've ever seen. Check this out..."

He pulls out his P-Sec and places it down on the table for everyone to see. Video feeds from what he found inside start to play. While the video rolls, Wraith does a play-by-play of each room, pointing out the strengths of the system.

"The halls are nasty. Motion sensors, gas dispersion systems and pressure plates on each piece of art. Every one of em. Out target area has the same, with an extra array of sensors. There is an additional system that seems to tie fiberoptics into the camera surveillance, which likely means they have mages watching the room in astral via fiber."

Noire sits back in his seat and ponders for a second." The motion sensors can be countered with ultra-sound emitters and the gas countered with respirators, gasmasks what have you...provided it isnt anything extremely nasty that permates through the skin. That too can be countered. The fiber optic system is tied to the security system which can be spoofed or disabled completely if need be and if the motion sensors are tied to the central security that too can be spoofed....not easily but it can possibly be done." Noire looks around him hoping he hasnt spoken the obvious and perhaps hoping the rest of the crew realizes he is an asset.

Ariel grins like a fool when the decker speaks up.

"Ok I think we all like the way you think Noire."

Noire's face cools a little as he realizes his comment was valid and then speaks slowly." We know the bait, the trap, but not the hunter...knowing that may help us with the traps and any other nasty surprises that we may occur."

"True, once we have an idea of the total picture we should be able to get something done. So it looks like we have 3 layers, outer security guarding the building, and the grounds. Inner security, guarding the doors, walls, windows, and hallways. And then the object security, gaurding each of the objects d'art."

Ariel looked around at everyone to make sure they were all with her.

"So let's start with the outer layer, the grounds and surounding area."

Wraith asks, "Did anyone check out those tunnels yet?"

"Loki was looking into the escape route, or viability of such an escape or evasion route. He left me a message that he would get with us in a few days once he had a viable solution. I think for now we should concentrate on analyzing the security for weaknesses."

" Perhaps part of the security system is exposed from the tunnels?"

"Thats what I was hoping. Or maybe we can find some anchient backdoor or something, who knows. Either way, lets see if we can get Loki on the horn with us to give us a rundown. Anyone got speaker phone that can ring him up?"

"If he believes somethings there we can exploit then i'll need to go there and tap and trace some lines."

"I think I can rig something, give me a second."

Form one of the many pockets Ariel produced a external Handset radio and plugged the unit into her datajack hidden under her silky hair behind her ear.

Mentally she connected her Cell phone to Loki's, and broadcasted the dwarfs voice over the PCU's speaker.

Noire smiles as he comments."Nice trick, wish i'd thought of it."

"Gentlemen, Ladies, good to hear from you. I'm guessing if you're calling you have questions on the quality locations for spelunking in the local region. I have to say, the caves in certain areas have quite a few interesting aspects. I've contracted a local guide for you that has spent the past day, and most of tomorrow showing me the areas for your vacationing pleasure. If you'll give me a few more hours, I should have the layout drawn up and sent to you so that you can best plan your stay in the beautiful cavernous trails of central France. If I may emphasize, It looks beautiful down here, exactly what the doctor ordered, in a figurative sort of way.", Loki replies, his tone a bit too jovial as he goes on with his vacationing speech over the open air ways. "Give me another day or 2 and your vacationing options shall be wide open for a spelunking adventure like no other."

"Excellent I can't wait. Thanks Loki, well touch base with you in 24 hours in the meat world and you can give us the down lo."

Ariels nodded subconsciously to no one and disconnected the transmission.

"Despite his glowing report I find it hard to believe they would over look the tunnels. Better the enemy we know. We should look at going in conventionally and see what we can come up with. I'll meet with Loki tomorrow and check out his information. I say at this point we break for a week and give Noir time to see what he can dig up on the internet. The rest of us should contact our people and find out what we can get. I would like to do this with zero interaction with the staff. But if the only way we can get in is through framing some fat guard then lets do it. Ok?"

Wraith nods. "No problem. I'll give a girlfriend of mine down at the Hall of Records a call and see what she can get me and continue recon on the sight to see if there are any holes that I missed the first time around."

"See if you can get the bidders for the security contract. I know it may not state who won but we can follow the money from there and find out which company."

"Okay so we have a plan. Everyone hit their contacts and see what you can dig up. I'll meet with Loki and check out the tunnels. We all have eachothers phone numbers if we need help. We'll meet here again in a week."

"Want some company down there? I'd like to take a look myself and mem the route."

"Sure, the more the merrier."

"Lleu you wanna come to?"

"Frankly, I think the plan stinks." Lleu joked. "But should be interesting. "

"I'd like to look down there myself, maybe run a few taps and traces."

"If you want, you can give me the taps and I can hook them up for you. That way you can concentrate your time in the data searches."

Noire remembering the quick work on adapting the phone, smiles and says." Let me get you a few of them."

The team quickly wraps up the loose ends before sending a coalition down to meet Loki in the tunnels. Noire dives back into the realm of simulated sensation and sculpted interfaces. Hours pass and the sun breaks the visible line of the horizon multiple times before everyone has rejoined the world of meat and flesh above ground and unplugged.

End Day 3: Loki sends a message to the rest of his comradres. "Heyas, spelunking expedition completed, let's rent a boat on the channel and have a bit of a party tomorrow to discuss future adventures. I've got a 6-man boat with cabin reserved for a mid-day cruise on the channels, let's see the other side of France."

Ariel snacked on the wrapped sandwich she had purchased form the street vendor. The sun touched lightly on her face, partially obscured by the scarf and sunglasses she wore.

A thin fiber optic cable ran to her palm pilot silently downloading the hundreds of pictures she had taken of the inside, the art they needed, and of any guards she ran across.

The sun sets framing some of Paris's best known buildings in gold as the team sits down around a table in the ship's galley. Pictures of the targets are displayed on the flat-vid screen built into the wall, with silent images of uniformed guards flashing by.

Anachronistic as it feels, Wraith unrolls a few blueprints of the building that he was able to sweet talk out of his one time flame. Noire sifts through data pulling out names that range from defense contractors to some of the brightest minds in the areas of thaumaturgic protection.

Noire begins to write down names in two cloumns..one for companies the other is names of people. He hastily scribes in stars next to the magically gifted ones.

Ariel lets out a soft whistle from her puckered satin lips.

"Usually when I am planning a job I go from a base plan. One I have used before. Say a roof insert or come up from the basement. But it looks like here, that they got all the tieves together in the world and said... tell us how you would do it."

The italian girl paced lightly around the table and before the screen.

"I just don't see a plan coming together. Anyone have any ideas?"

Loki pulls out the datachips he's created of the underground maze, and the relative location of the tunnels in relation to the museum itself. "Ok, good news, assuming we have some work done on this wall right here, we should be able to create a quick-exit from the museum. However, I'm still waiting to see where the exhibit is, we find out what floor and precisely where our 2 items will be located? All this drainage mapping is for naught if everything is on the top floor in the furthest part of the museum...."

Noire looks up from his papers." If they got a bunch of thieves together, then which ones?" Noire holds his look upon the assembled team as if to stress a point

Loki:
Cross-referencing the pictures that Ariel brought out with the map and personal recollection of passing through the museum, you are able to place the exhibit on the second floor of the Denon Wing. The same room where the Mona Lisa has hung for years received a state of the art security upgrade to house the exhibit.

The escape route goes through the underground section of the Sully wing near the Medieval remnants of the Louvre.

"So the escape route through the tunnels could be a little tricky since the wing is opposite of them. Do they ever move the the Ruby and the Journal, maybe for cleaning? Noir, can you find out if they have a procedure in place if things get damaged or dirty?"

"I'll look through normal sources then the matrix if i dont find anything."

The subtle tilting motion of the boat as it rocks on the water of the river catches the setting sun in the portholes that shed light into the large room you are all gathered in. A golden radiance reflects off the polished table playing off the different forms moving around the room as you discuss strategies and entry points.

Noire takes a moment to look out the portal...ah Paris he thinks to himself

"Ok so we may be able to use the tunnels to egress, good. How about getting in, any thoughts? Should it be a daylight grab and we run a con? Or do we take it at night and bypass the security?"

"Daylight would be insane. Not only would we have to worry about security, but all the pedestrians getting in the way too. It leaves too much to chance. We could try a con, maybe wait for when the painting is to be transfered and plant ourself to pick it up? It'll take some legwork to figure out who is doing the pickup and whatnot, but it's been done. Other than that, we're looking at a night time snatch and grab."

"So its a night time snatch. Now the question is do we go total covert or try for a distract and run?"

"My vote is gunna have to go with covert. With the kind of stuff they have in there, for all we know, it could just highten their alert and make our job impossible. I'm not saying that it isn't worth looking at, but lets not put all out weight on that yet just... Hmmm... Do we want to hire someone to bash the place and see how long it takes security to respond?"