Ludmila's face is sudently washed over with a big smile.

"Why of course Mister D. You can ride along with Hank, and I'll make sure he" points at Ernie "follows in one piece".

Ludmila gets up, and starts walking toward the door.

"Alright; let's be on our way."

Glancing back at Hank.

"I'll be right behind you... and you" she points at Ernie, are coming with me.

"Alright, sounds like a plan." looking at Ludi. "Now you be nice to him on the ride to my place. K " and waits to follow Hank to his ride.

"Oh yes. I will be very very gentle with the rodent."

Jack opens the door to his condo and says "Make your self at home. the couch is rather confortable. " then Jack will go into the kitchet and pull over 1 more chair then grab a beer and ask " Anyone want anything to drink? I got beer, milk and some vodka."

Ernie glances at Ludi and smiles." Sure, we could use some alone time." Rat whispers...are you crazy? No just cornered Walking outside Ernies forehead begins to bead with sweat.

Ludmila goes over and sits on the floor itself, unzipping her large shoulder bag and pulling some wires out of it. She takes her pocket computer out, plugging it straight in her datajack. She then starts to work on Jack's trideo, connection her computer to the display unit.

"Alright... everyone will be able to see what we have..."

She lifts her head toward Jack.

"Vodka; straight; no ice, please."

She then gets a white noise generator, sits it on the floor and powers it on. With a gentle hum, it comes to life.

"Let us start with the information I gathered last night, before all this happened."

She punches a few keys and a picture of Rick Stone appears.

"Rick Stone used to work for West Coast Modeling, before her turned freelancer. His main girl is... was, Kote. She has... had been doing pinups and scream sheets for the past year, and was a hot thing in the field. Apparently, Miss Kote had been seeing movie execs recently: she wanted to exchange modelling for acting. She has been doing so for over a month, and had recently met with some movie producer, downtown. Stone also had one of his girls, Anne Keller, murdered some time ago. She was found dead, in Puget Sound. Keep that in mind: she was found dead in water. There never was any investigation in her death since she was SINless."

She takes a little break, looking over her notes.


"Concerning Cain, I couldn't find anything at all... Nothing useful in the Lone Star files... At least, not with the information we had at that point. I was able to find out that Mister Stone has no prior convictions or criminal record, but he did post bail for a Charles Whittington, a little while back. Charles, which I believe is the same Charles we have met, has a very long sheet of drug offenses. He apparently likes to hook his girls so he can get them working cheap in seedy movies. I also went and checked out the weapon's market for anything unusual: large by of explosives, sniper rifle, anti vehicular weaponry."

She takes a bit of a shamed look.

"You know... making sure our adversary didn't have any heavy weaponry at his disposal. Everything came clear... but it seems whoever killed Kote used a pistol. Silenced would be my bet. Anyways.... I did find something very interesting on one of my matrix searches: one of the movie execs Kote met with was named Whittington. Charles Whittington."

"So, now, here is what happened at Kote's residence. Sometime between when she closed the curtain, which Hank can tell us precisely when, and about one hour before we broke into her house, some one got in using the back door, picked the look, broke the security chain, and shot her once in each eyes. After that, he proceeded in clogging all the drains and turning the water on. I believe Cain, or whoever did this, either has a thing with water and also killed Anne Keller... or is a copy cat trying to throw us off track... makes us think there is a link between the Keller murder and Kote's."

"I drove by Stone's house this morning, and spotted him leaving the place with another man."

She puts his picture up on the trid display.

"I have yet to identify who he is, but I will surely do so soon. I also copied Kote's hardrive and portfolios in here" she taps her computer "and I will review them for anything useful as soon as I can."

"Mister Hank also has one of the bullet that killed Miss Kote, and I found this stuck to the chain".

She pulls out a plastic bag out of her pocket. It contains a small piece of fabric with blood on it. Ludmila throws it in Ernie's lap.

"Can you be useful and do something with that? Use it as a link?"

She then punches a few keys again, and various pictures of the inside of Kote's house start slide on the screen.

"I took numerous pictures of the house and the scene... if any of you would like to review them."

It is obvious, from the point of view the pictures were taken, that they come from a cyber eye.

"So, that is pretty much all we have now. We need to inform Mister Stone of the situation. I believe we should also further investigate the man who was with him, as well as the few items we collected from Kote's house."

Ludmila, slowly getting up, unplugs herself and stretches all her limbs.

"We also could not locate the famous letter that Mister Stone mentioned. I assume that either Cain took it... or that it never existed and that all this is a setup to kill Kote before she jumped ship, and pin it on us." she yawns a bit "Alright... if you guys have anything else to add, do so now. If not, lets all get to work."

Jack handing Ludi her Vodka. "Wow thats a lot of info, you are good. I think we need to look into this Charles guy some more too. It sounds like he and Stone were competing for the girl, and not working to gather like we were to previously to believe.

Ernie looks at Jackie D "Vodka? You had vodka and you were hilding out on me." Ernie takes a glance at Ludi waiting for the obvious dirty look to happen.

Jack handing Ludi her Vodka. "Wow thats a lot of info, you are good. "

To which she replied; "Yes, I know."

She grabbed the vodka from him, thanking him with a smile. Turning to Ernie, she said "this is not for little street rodents like your kind. This is what differentiates the adults from the children."

On that, she puts her head back, downing the whole glass in a single shot. Slightly shivering, she comes back to her senses.

"Well... that hit the spot quite well indeed."

She gets up, leaving her different gadgets scattered on the ground.

"If you would like you can hit your contacts... I will go and call our employer from a public telecom, and let him know what has happened. Maybe I can extract some more information out of him. If everything goes well, we should immediately move to the second phase of our mission: finding Cain."

Keeping her weapons, she picks up her jacket and heads for the door. Before reaching it, she says over her shoulder "If anyone would like to accompany me, now is the time to get moving".

Jack seeing Ludi leaving says " Yes" then looking over at Hank" Hank should go with you to the phone. We only have Charles's # correct? Though we were lead to believe Stone is our emplorer, we can't see sure that he is. We only meet this Charles and did a net thingly which coud have been anyone. I think we have to assume that he is realy our emplorer and maybe we should try and track down Stones direct # and contact him sepretly. But go ahead and go call Charles and see what he has to say." Looking over at Slick. "Think you can do you thing and check out Stones place? I'll make sure there are no distractions this time."

Hank starts to move twords the door. "I'll accomany you there, it would probly be safer if we stayed in teams of two just incase we run into any trouble. I'm sure Jack and Ernie are ok with this. Seeing how chummy theve been thus far." Hank will open the dorr for Ludi and follow her out. He'll grab his weapons from his car and head out.

Ernie watches them leave, this time Ernie decides to actually do as he's told.Ludi took it easy on him at the first incident...no telling what she'd do if he screwed around again....at least so soon. Ernie settles in to the large chair and looks at Jackie D smiling he says."Check out time, watch the meat ok chum." Ernies eyes are already rolling to the back of his head before he finishes the sentence.

Jack nods to Ludi and Hank as they leave, then to Slick as he slides away into his catatonic state. Jack walks over and locks the deadbolt.(Jack had feels safer with a none computer backup lock) then Jack proceeds to make himself a sandwich and watches the new for any reports on what had happened this morning.

Ludi and Hank



Ernie



Jack

Turning on her implanted recorder, Ludmila answered Charles.

"Hello Mister Charles. This is Jeannie, with Seattle Express Delivery. We were hire to deliver a package, which we went to pickup today. unfortunately, before it was transmitted in our hands, it was damaged beyond repair. We tried to fix the bumps on it, but nothing was salvageable. I am sorry to inform you that our stock it completely dry... we won't ever be able to deliver your item. If you'd like to advise new directives, please do so. If not, we will proceed in finding who is responsible for the mishandling your item. Since you package was damaged, our PR department would love to get comments from the signatory of the contract directly. Since it was his package that was damaged, we need his comments on a few forms. If you would please send me is contact information, that would be great."

Still holding the telecom unit, which was on audio only, Ludmila lifted her eyes toward Hank. She didn't like speaking on the phone to people she didn't know... and she simply hopped that Charles was clever enough to understand what had happened, and what she was asking.

Jack seeing that Charles had been arrested for this meeting with a group that looked like Hank and Ludi he quickly calls Hank's cell. ring ring ring.

Ludi and Hank

"No thank you sir, that will be all. Wait.... are you Mathew Charles Cunningham? Oh! I'm so sorry sir, I thought I was calling at (she switches the last two digit of the number). I am most sincerely sorry about this misunderstanding sir. I apologize on behalf of Seattle Express Delivery. I am very sorry for this disturbance. Have a nice day sir."

She hangs up, not letting him time to answer. Getting outside the booth, she lights a cigarette.

"Something's not right... this Charles seemed a lot less cold and calculating than the first one. Voice seemed the first..... Isn't that your phone ringing?"

Ernie stays as long as possible before having to return with a few moments of time left. Returning back to Jackie D's place he smiles in his astral form.Slinking back into his body Ernie lets out a loud yell startling Jack.Ernie begins laughing histerically. Panting through his laughter Ernie makes out." Should....have seen...your face......chum."

Jack with his phone in one hand and his beer in the other gets spooked at Slick yelling and his phone and beer go flying up in the air both landing on Slick, good thing they had finished all the beer in bottles last night and Jack had to drink one from a can. "Damn you Slick, look what you made me do." reaching to pick up whats left of his beer and trying to get his phone before someone answered.

Hank looks at his caller ID. Followed by looking around for suspicious people and/or cops.

Perception

Hank then proceeds to answer the phone. "Whats the situation." He pauses for a reply.

Hank and Ludi

Hank looks at his caller ID. Followed by looking around for suspicious people and/or cops.

Perception

Hank then proceeds to answer the phone. "Whats the situation." He pauses for a reply.

Little double post action? See my previous post.

Ernie is still rather amused as he wipes his t-shirt then eventually places the wet portions in his mouth to suck the beer out. Ernie walks over to the refrigerator and pulls two beers out, as he walks back to his seat he hands Jackie D a new one. Ernie is still grinning ear to ear.

Hank looks over at Ludi with a very concerned expression. He takes a good look around.

Perception

"We need to go I don't believe that was who we think it was. Hopefully it wasn't traced, either way we should leave this area now." Hank grabs the phone and wipes it clean of all the areas that Ludi touched. He then makes his way to the vehical, looking back at Ludi "Please hurry my guts actin up, which usually means troubles comin." He glances around, "or worse its here. He then gets in the car.

Jack hangs up and says to Slick "Hank said they had just called Charles and talked to someone. They thought he was the guy but did feel like something was wrong. They are coming back now. Did you find out anything in you little nap time there?

Ernie has a bewildered look on his face." When did they talk to him? Moments ago i saw him asleep, i mean not more than...how long i been back in my meat body?" Ernie shakes his head. "When did they talk to him?"

"You saw Charles asleep? Where? On the new they said he got arrested." Jack a little bewildered himself be what Slick said.

Ludmila, following Hank's lead, gets in his van.

"Find me another payphone, some way off... Even if Mister Stone is compromised, we have to contact him. I just want to quiet down Jacky's suspicions that he isn't our employer."

Ludi and Hank

Ludmila proceeds in getting out of Hank's van. Glacing quickly back at him, she makes sure he's watching the surroundings while she makes the call. Wrapping her hand in her sleeve, she makes sure to set the call of voice only and dials Rick's number. Not being a lady who gets rid of her habits, she turns her recording implants on during the conversation.

Ludi and Hank

When the voice mail kicked in, Ludmila couldn't help herself but curse loudly. Leaving a message meant that anyone could hear it... something she didn't like at all. Before the recorder was activated, she hung up.

Shoving both her hands in her pockets, she walked back to Hank's vehicle.

"Fragging voice mail... Lets get back to D's place. We need to get moving, and fast."

Ludi and Hank

Jack hearing knocking at his door, walks over and asks "Who's there?" and looking through the peep hole. Seeing that it was hank and lUdi he undid the deadbolt and opened the door to let them in. "So whats up guy? Hank didn't say much on the phone when i told him Charles was shown getting arrested on the news. I t-voded it so you can watch it if you like." Jack going back and sits door in his chair.

Ernie looks up from his lounging position and raises his beer towards the two new comers in a sign of hello. Ernie grins as looks at Ludi.Non chalantly "Oh I did a little checking around the Stone residence."

Ludmila hated to waste time. She knew the Star was onto them, and that they needed to vent the heat... quick. Walking across the living room where Ernie and Jack were enjoying their beers, she threw her jacket on the couch. Stretching her arms wide, she cracked her neck from side to side and looked at the three men.

"As of now, we are to consider this operation compromised. Our payment has also probably been forfeited since Charles has been arrested. Our own identities have been compromised... I personally believe we have to go on with our objective. Capturing whoever is hiding behind all this will take the heat of our backs and salvage our reputation."

She turned toward Ernie.

"You get in touch with your people... whoever they are, and try to track the killer using the blood we collected at Kote's. "

She started, once again, to look for her pack of cigarette.

"Jacky; theoretically, Charles has given us the go ahead for phase two of the mission. We haven't been able to reach Rick... Since we have his address, you might want to check it out."

The woman glanced toward Hank.

"And you can go with him, in case he needs backup."

Picking up her computer, she sat on the floor itself, resting agaisn't the wall.

"I will be getting in touch with my people to see what I can get. You don't mind if I connect through you telecom unit Jacky?"

"Sure go right ahead, I don't think it's been touched in over a year thou. But i think it still works. Slick what did you see at stones place? You said he was sleeping? Was there anyone else in his place? If hank and i were to go to his place to talk to him directly i want to know what we could expect if Stone doesn't like my face or what we would be discussing with him." Jack getting up to toss his empty beer in the trash.

" A couple of Toughs, downstairs...not sure if they were wired or not...I can go back and peek though. Stone was asleep, and another was on a computer....I only did a small snoop job on there, anything in particular i should scout for?" The last was obviously directed at Ludi. "If i had the Yen i could post a watcher on Stone...harass him or just watch" Looking at Ludi slyly " Just a little bit of Fragging back might be fun"

"I think thats good enough. Maybe 3 to 4 men + Stone, Hank and I could handle that if things got bad. Handle it enough to get the frag out of there can call for backup at least. But lets hope the mans reasonable and maybe know knows about us and we what are doing. Slick you should concentrate on that blood while Ludi does her thing with the computer and stuff." Pauses for any replies."Well if everything is set we might as well get going Hank." Jack stands up grabbing his coat and guns.

Ludi starts working on the telecom to plug herself in the Matrix

"If you can keep the body count to zero, that would be great. If things ever get hot, call in here and I'm sure Slick will be glad to provide astral backup."

"Alright boys; lets make this right."

Jack looks over at Ludi" I never plan on killing people it just has to happen sometimes, well I do plan on killing some times but that besides the point " then gives a big half smile with a wink to Ludi. "Lets go Hank"

Ludi









Jack and Hank

Jack will say to Hank "We should wait till those men leave before going up."