Echos of the Past

Aimond sat silently as he listened to the proposition. A stern look was etched across his face. As he let the information marinate, his thoughts were jarred by the stammering of one of the fellow runners. He eyed the nervous man suspiciously. He couldn't blame him really, this type of work was hard on the nerves. However, the lack of professionalism struck him as odd. He dismissed the thoughts. It was not his job to watch over amateurs who couldn't string together a coherent sentence.

His thoughts returned on the job at hand. The task presented him with mixed emotions. The chance to commune with nature in the wilds of the jungle enticed him greatly. However, his job was to save a facility that he viewed as a blight upon the land. Steel and concrete do not belong a month the lush trees, and flowing rivers of the jungle. The prospect of just blowing it off the face of the earth was tempting. It would do damage, but Gaia was strong and the damage could be healed. He would reserve judgment for now, and mediate on it.

He folded his hands under his chin, as he took in those who would be his partners for this...endeavor. He hoped they didn't all suffer from a speech impediment.

<Shh! Shhhh... can you hear that?> Anya lifted a black hand to her ear, straining to listen for something. <It's the sound of life going on! So you stutter a bit? No big deal. It is kinda chilly in here...> a check of the thermographic recording from Jack's eyes revealed that it was, indeed cold in the room, seemingly originating from one of the individuals in the meeting with them. That certainly deserved further investigation, but it would have to wait until a later time; right now, her audience of one needed her.

<This isn't about hiring you or not hiring you. This is about you having the skills and expertise to do this job. Did you hear the mission briefing? Darkwolf, please confirm comprehension of mission objectives, in order of importance of completion.> Maybe having him review their job would help ease him into work mode and look to the future. Anything to take some of his concern off his own performance in this social situation. <Are you capable to carry out all objectives? Please advise.>

The johnson shrugs in response to Trevors question and nods at Darkwolf's comment. "Part of the issue is that I don't actually KNOW exactly what we have on site as far as defenses go. The defenses are intentionally varied from site to site and the whole Black Projects department operates a very strict need-to-know policy. The only three men off-site who had a need-to-know for Beta-7 are attending funerals this week. Standard for this sort of installation would be an IR outer security fence, at least 1 roving external drone, camera and ultrasound motion detectors on the external walls and inside. Internally, mag-locked doors, manned security points at important locations. Secure areas would generally have at least one other type of lock system beyond mags. Active combat drones inside the facility aren't normal, but there are generally some on site that can be activated in the event of an emergency. But as I said, every site is intentionally varied. It certainly won't match that layout exactly. The only question is where and how it will be different."

"As for your agent, Darkwolf, was it? I very much doubt an agent program, no matter how skilled, could break through the sites internal matrix security. However, as far as I'm concerned, the run is your show. If you want to give you agent a try, be my guest. So long as the job gets done.

<M-mission obje- Mission parameters are within skill capabilities. Gear is packed up and ready for transport.> To everyone else, it seemed like Darkwolf was just frozen in place, no longer shaking or twiddling his thumbs. "Sir, Agent Program 003 codename Anya has advanced programing and is capable of performing any action a hacker can do. Anya is a suitable replacement for any hacker in the field." His tone was firm and unemotional, like speaking to a robot.

As it was, the only thing in Taur's mind was the thought of leaving the country. While he wasn't fully established in the America's, leaving only meant the greater possibility of running into Game members, and despite the paltry payment, information on his beloved would be much more valuable. "On the recent attack, i'll assume you know very little specifics, but if you could kindly tell us if there were any trinkets left behind at the scene? As best to your knowledge." He kept the ice orbs rolling in his hand, beads of water rolling over the edges as they became smoother and smoother, er go, clearer. His tailored suit hid the armor beneath as his white hair was tied back into a braid, not bothering to hide the irish brogue that infected his voice. "An A.I. joining on us on the party, I've met a few in a previous life, why doesn't she use the holo-projector and talk for herself, or does she need a puppet?" His voice was calm, like he'd done this his whole life, and his face betrayed nothing but a serene arrogance.

The johnson shrugs again. "As far as Lone-star is concerned, all three events are either accidents or sucides. Nothing they've turned up shows anything different. Which only means that whoever arranged them is good. I've another team already working that end. We don't intend to let our people get hit without responding. But I've gotten no leads from them as of yet.

Trevor eyed Taur a moment at the mention of an AI. He'd heard things about AIs, even knew a tiny bit, but it was mostly all theory, he'd never dealt with any thing particulairly advanced beyond hgiher end drone 'dog brains'. Indeed, his own drones actualy packed some relatively advanced AIs themselves, nothing truely cutting edge, but for their size some of them packed considerably more intellectual 'punch' than the average. He should know, he'd put in the upgrades himself.

Then there was the matter of this stuttering fellow, mentally unbalanced most likely, no one 'normal' acted that way, hell even abnormal peopel tended not to act qutie that way either he supposed, unless they were really going off the deep end.

"Ok so just touching on the whole drone thing again, what's typical combat drone wise? Like, we gonna run into the wee ones or we liable to run up against heavy drones like a lynx, or god forbid a biodrone project? I'm fine working with theoretical situations, I just want to get a better idea of the potentials so I can build up a proper secnario database for everyone to run off of. A good example is if say, they used a lot of HK drones we'd say.. potentially need soemthing that could clear out a swarm, like.. a flamethrower or something. It's expensive to do but I've heard if you have the money it can be icredibly effective."

The mention of A.I. made Anya's form sit straight up, no longer lounging easily in the air above. <What? Wh-why would he even say such a thing?> She hadn't yet told Jack, and she doubted he noticed the when she first became aware. Eventually she wanted him to find out, but certainly not now, in front of a group. Time to nip it in the bud. <Hold out your commlink, I'm going to use the holo- oh... the jamming, right.> One by one she cycled through her options, all of which turned out to be unavailable. There was, quite literally, nothing she could do to address the unspoken accusation, and prompting Jack to come to her defense would just make him suspicious. And so she remained quiet, words failing her for the first time in quite a while.

Johnson runs a hand through his spikes as he stares into space for a moment. "No promises, but I've setup security for similar sites. I can give you an educated guess based on that. Outer drones will probably be walkers or small helos of some sort. Wheeled or tracked drones will have too much trouble with the undergrowth if they have to leave the cleared area, large drones won't fit between the trees, and conventional fliers will be too likely to run into them. A swarm of micros or something similar is possible, but not likely. They can be potent, but generally aren't as cost effective and bottom line is a consideration. Interior... probably chariots, maybe some dobermans. Your guess is as good as mine as to what they'll be carrying. Recon drones of any stripe are unlikely. Outside... trust me, trying to run a recon drone in heavy jungle is just an exersize in frustration. Inside, when its your own building its easy to just install your own internal sensors rather then use drones."

"Ok." Trevor responds "So that leaves a few mini and micro recon drones for perimeter over watch, their cheap and would manage just fine even in a jungle." he frowns and then pulls up his AR to start working out some theoretical builds they could run into "We liable to hit lethal or non lethal resistance from typical on site security? Knowing if their using stick n' shock rounds could be just as important as knowing their packing armor piercing rounds." he notes, he knew that supposedly most corps loaded only gel or stick n' shock publicly, but there was no reason at all they couldn't just load something much more lethal.

Stifles a mild laugh as one member tried to squeeze all of the information out of the Johnson, like blood from a stone. "Don't schools in this country teach people to treat all guns as lethal?" Just because he didn't know of any information at the scene, that didn't mean the Game didn't orchestrate this at all. "I'm fine with the details we have, with the exception that the more we try to plan this out, the easier it will be for the plan to fail miserably. Getting there and observing the situation would be the best option at the moment. As well as an introduction of the members?"

The johnson chuckles and grins broadly over at Taur before shifting his gaze back to the rigger. "I'm sending you into a facility carrying out illegal, high security research with has already swallowed a well trained security team without them even managing to let us know what took them down. I'm reasonably certain you can make your own accurate guess on the use of lethal hardware. And even if you couldn't manage to guess right about the gear we installed, remember that whoever took the facility has already killed at least six people to help them do it, three of them who just had the misfortune of being related to the wrong person. You really think they are likely to be looking to just disable you or warn you off?"

Trevor glanced over towards the mage and shook his head. "Yeah see the part your missing here? Stick n' shock rounds are pretty cheap, they also happen to be rather good at getting past body armour unless it's specifically resistant against electricity. It wont kill you out right, but it can take you down just as easily as a regular bullet, and leaves you there to either be interrogated or for some slotter to walk up and just shoot you in the head at their leisure." his tone is perfectly serious in this, he may not know runs all that well, but the kid damn well knows his hardware well enough to build some of it from scratch with the right tools, guns included. "Part of 'treating guns as lethal' is knowing what those guns can do to you and armoring yourself appropriately. I mean yeah, sure it's best not to get shot at all, but if this team was taken out so easily in the first place, then odds are the other guys are using a number of nasty tricks, and you can pull off some interesting things with non lethal rounds. Besides, even so called non lethal rounds can, in fact, kill people when used certain ways or under certain conditions. There's also the argument of wanting to know who sent a team after you, and there's generally nothing stopping you from... disposing of them afterward. That's why there's IC out there that can do a number of things to you, none of which will kill you and are common on the more secure systems. If they knock your dreck out and force the connection to stay open they can just trace your dreck back. The concept is similar with using non lethal rounds in a secure facility, the bonus is that they just have to walk over to you instead of having to drive or fly over and do a retrieval."

He leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms, thinking for a few moments before agreeing with the mage. "That said, I agree we've got probably as much as we need to go on. I don't like it much but we can pick up a lot more useful intel on site. I've got a couple of micro drones I can sniff about the facility with that should go un-noticed for the most part, unless their running milspec level gear, in which case I'd guess we'd all be screwed regardless."

Kieron just sat looking from person to person in turn listening to what they had to say. "I'm a little bit inexperienced here. Secure facilities and combat drones? Sounds a bit tougher than the occasional break in and abductions I'm used to. Too late to back out now though, plus its not like I'd be able to do much else with my skill set. Enough thinking gotta focus on the job at hand."

Kieron swallowed nervously while glancing between Taur and Trevor."They're right, no point in planning right now." Nodding in their directions. "Especially when we don't know what the rest of the group's abilities are. Probably best to just go with introductions like you suggested." He gazed around the group looking for some kind of confirmation or agreement.

"I suppose I'll start." Kieron stood up and gave a short wave. Outward appearance wise he was an elf with short black hair and a youthful face. He has light pale skin and is a bit short and a little scrawny. Most would guess his age is around fifteen. He is wearing simple yet stylish dark clothes."My names Kieron and I've got some ability in magic. Past experience tended to focus on capturing people alive as well as some stealth, though I can kill things when required." He retook his seat and glanced around.

As the Johnson spins out the tale, Pick considers the salient points. Three dead researchers, all in the same skunkworks. But how does the Belize site relate to them? It seems like the Johnson could be mistakenly connecting two unrelated events. That might be worth some followup time after the meet's over, when he's got a chance to replay the video he's capturing and hit the public DBs and shadowboards.

For now, though, the most important thing is getting the keys to the kingdom. Pick crushes his nicostick into the heel of his boot and clears his throat. "This facility must not be very important to you if you can't even bother to look up the site plan." The slight human looks around the room at the shocked expressions, then presses on. "You've already lost a security team into the site, with zero information provided. That tells me either they were unprepared, overwhelmed, or just plain defected. In two of those three cases, more information helps."

"Or maybe this site of yours isn't really one of your sites, and you're using us to infiltrate another corp's site in retaliation for your dead tech-heads. That's relatively easily checked, but that's for later." Pick lights up another nicostick, the flare compensation in his eyes automatically maintaining video recording quality despite the brief flame.

"If this is a Neonet site, prove it. I want full access security codes for all locks, plus sysadmin passcodes for all nodes in the facility, including datastores and security. I want a detailed site plan and blueprint, with security plans and HVAC included. Furthermore, I want to know what military and magical assets there were in the facility when it was 'lost', and dossiers of all missing personnel from the site, including that other security team. I can't be certain that the site and its personnel haven't been completely compromised, but I can make drek-sure that I can use whatever I can get my hands on to combat your unknown threat."

"And don't give me a song and dance about not being able to get that information. You said three people have it, and funerals don't last for more than three days. And I know that even the darkest black sites still keep security rosters and shipping manifests."

"And while we're at it, you probably have satellite or aerial recon of the site. I want any pictures or video from the last five days. And if you don't have drones monitoring the site, I'm going to have to ask why the frag not."

Pick takes a drag on his nicostick before continuing. "If you want me in, you're going to have to even up the odds against these unknown bad guys. Or maybe you really can't get this info because the facility's owned by someone else. In which case you'll probably want to start playing straight with us."

(OOC: Azo, let me know if you want me to roll Negotiation.)

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Paradox

Trevor was about to offer up his list of mechanical and engineering qualifications, on top of the clear fact he was a rigger when Pick speaks up and actually manages to somewhat boggle the kid's mind. He'd not even thought of any of that stuff, satellite photos? Oh, well, he supposed that made sense, they had those in the movies right? And if you could get a drone to take photos of a spot, he supposed you could get a satellite to do that too.. he frowned in thought as he went off on that mental tangent and considered what he knew of such things, which, wasn't anywhere near as much as he knew about the other side of things. He didn't dare interrupt at this point, lest he start sounding like an idiot, which he felt.. he probably would say something stupid. He knew drones. He knew bike racing, he new electronics and gizmoes and, hell, even guns... well at least as far as building them and repairing them went, he kinda sucked when it came to actually shooting them...

He'd not even thought to really doubt the J was telling the truth, though he supposed if they did that in the movies and trids and the like, that would make sense too....

"Ah, the obsessive paranoia of a true shadowrunner. You've no way of knowing I'm telling the truth. Believe or not, I don't much care - you are getting paid to do the job not to trust me. You are, of course, quite welcome to check the public datanets. The site is legally registered to NeoNET, though I promise you that the floorplan and other layouts we offically reported to the local government don't match what's actually there. Of course, since you have no proof I work for NeoNET, that's all besides the point. But to be clear on something, the option of walking away from this meet is not avaliable. You can choose to do the job, you can choose to wait in supervised confinment until the rest of the team does the job, after which we'll set you free, or you can be killed. But you won't be leaving this building today with the information I've already provided you unless its to do the job in question." The johnson leans back and crosses his arms. He makes no threatening gesture. But he also shows absolutely no concern over his own safety, even after threatening to kill a group who outnumbers him seven to one.

"As for the rest of your issues... That's a live feed from one of our sats." The johnson jerks his thumb at the aerial holo shot still hovering over the table. "You're welcome to use it as long as its in the basket, which is for about 6 hours out of every 48. Though I'm sure you realize that I have no intention of giving you access codes to the sat itself. The feed will be relayed to you. As for funerals not lasting more then three days, they last forever when they are your own. Since it seems I wasn't clear enough, everyone off-stie who had a need-to-know for that site was killed four days ago. We're sifting their records, but the access to them went with their owners. We have to hack them all, and even then they are intentionally filed in a way to make identifing them almost impossible. We don't make it easy for people to steal the defensive data of our secure sites. So even when I find say, an invoice for say a crate of ammo or a researcher's file, it doesn't tell me which site it was for. And Mr. Marx ran ALL of Black Projects. That's alot of sites worth of info we sorting through."

"As for sending in drones, two points. First, running them remote requires a high strength signal, easy to spot and vulnerable to hacking, interception, or being jammed. That still leaves running something local of course. As I seem to recall, that's part of what you are being hired to do. Second, drones cost money. By the time you figure maintance and paying for a rigger to run it, a good drone costs more then I'm paying you. And a runner is a far more versitile tool for the cost then any drone. Finally, I can, and will, get you the personal records of the team we already sent in."

Maga Camara finally someone with an IQ. Taur had let everyone talk about, whining about drones and what not, robots had their place in the shadows, this might be one, it might not be, who's to know until they got there. "Thank you Johnson, but i believe our colleague was inferring to was the reason our enemy has to fight for, if we are the invading force, or if they are. Since we can neither trust you complicitly, nor disprove you, your money for now buys our services, but as expenses aside the job, this line of work is asking for quite a few of our own personal expenses. Ammo, talismans, and the such. I would propose that you also throw in, after the job is complete of course, a contact favor. If you are in need of our services again, call us, if we might need a bit of information that a... corporate sponsor would provide, we call you, with compensation, since nothing in the 'verse is ever free. Besides that, I have no problems, anyone else?"

Johnson smiles and nods to Taur - clearly he approves of the mage. "I make no promises. But if you need a job done, its only good business to hire those who have done well on previous jobs for you. And if keeping your potential employee's happy doesn't cost anything or compromise my own employers... well, as they say, anything for a friend.

Aimond placed his head in his tiny hands. He had never seen so many words with so little progress. He pondered what Aurora had gotten him into. If it weren't for the debt he owed, he would call her up and tell her to find a new act for this circus. He took a deep sigh to compose himself. One thought, repeated over and over in his head like a religious mantra, kept him from bringing forth a spirit of judgment to wipe this entire place off the map. Must remember the cause.

Aimond respected the straight to the point attitude of the Johnson, even if he couldn't respect what he represented. To him it seemed some of the people assembled did not understand their place in the natural order of things. Aimond was a soldier for a cause greater than himself. A soldier does not second guess every word of his commander. He was sent to do a job, and do that job he would. However, he wasn't a fool, he understood why some were hesitant. Going into a situation without fully understanding it, was dangerous. Shadowrunning was a dangerous business though.

As he brought his head up from its resting place, he spoke for the first time since his arrival. His soft voice floated through the air like a leaf on a gentle breeze. His size didn't allow him to be as boisterous as the others, nor did it carry the usual high pitched keening of his kind. Instead his voice had a quiet deepness to it, like the creaking of an ancient oak caught in a heavy wind. "If he says he has provided us with all he can, that is good enough for me. I am prepared to do what must be done."

Trevor took in the new information and thought over what had been said previously, breaking down everything in his mind. That left him with at least one other question at this point. Two, actually, now that he thought of it. "What about local transportation? Long way to walk, and it wouldn't be cheap to take say.. my bike with me. We could rent something I suppose, but that kind of thing is easy to trace, and without a proper shop to work with and the proper parts, I'd be hard pressed to make any necessary modifications. Would it be possible to get access to anything like that if we needed it? Beyond that, is there even a proper road out there? Or we gonna have to hoof it some ways?" he kind of hopped for the former, since he wasn't exactly the best at having to hike long distances. Oh he'd manage it he supposed but potentially not without getting lost unless he was able to rely on GPS. Either way, he wasn't about to back out now, this was the sort of excitement he'd only dreamed of growing up in some ways. Be a hell of an adrenaline rush...

Darkwolf turned his head to Trevor. "If we are to assault this base, stealth is the best way to go. We will have to hike to the target area regardless of road conditions. Vehicles generate too much noise and dust to be of any use on this mission." Darkwolf, though he doesn't remember, has had a lot of experience in this area. <Anya. Do a check of the site, see if it belongs to NeoNET. If you can, get information on Mr. Johnson.>

The request elicited a drawn out sigh from Anya. Although she kept her mental tone professional, her situation was making her grow antsy. <Negative, Darkwolf. Communications currently unavailable. You'll have to play it by ear for now until the jamming ends.> She sounded official, but inside Anya felt helpless, trapped inside Darkwolf's head. Aside from making a note to look into upgrading her signal capabilities later, there was nothing much she could do. What use was a Matrix specialist without Matrix connection?

Even the possibility of doing some housekeeping was out of the question; Anya had the node's sculpting just the way she wanted it. The reality filter displayed everything in terms of light; each file a separate shining beacon in the sky above, organized by intensity and hue, just waiting to be plucked down and examined. The firewall protecting the node took on the form of a comforting orange skyglow. Connections to other nodes shone at the end of tunnels, while the analysis program scanning the device was a series of spotlights sweeping the night sky for intruders.

After a few tweaks of the color scheme, Anya decided the sculpting was fine and went back to glumly waiting until she could contribute to group. Perhaps when she had the chance she'd take the Johnson up on his arrogant boast and see if she could dig something up on him. It wasn't in her nature to doubt her superiors - she had been programmed to obey the military commander in charge of the SOCE project. Running illegal missions under the table like this would take some getting used to.