Fixer's Delight

"Wait, hold on a second. You want me to... Keep... that thing?" Shasta says, looking at the mechanical device on the table-top. The look on her face showed a large amount of surprise. Shasta looks around the table, and back at the device, then reaches her hand forward, with one finger extended, to touch it. It was one of the strangest movements, almost as if she were trying to ascertain if the device was real or not.
Shasta withdraws her hand after her exploratory poke at the commlink, satisfied that it was most likely "real". Shortly thereafter, the commlink lifts off the table, very slowly, and floats toward Shasta. It stops a good half-meter in front of her face, and begins to rotate very very slowly. Clearly, Shasta is inspecting the device. Her face is calm, and serene. She seems to be in some sort of "investigation" mode or something, where she pays only attention to the details before her.
"I have seen plenty of you metahumans carrying these things around. But I am a little bit confused as to why you're all interested in having me carry it. Do you suppose it will be useful?" She ends her little thoughtful repose in a question, "lifting" the commlink a bit higher so that she can look at the rest of the group. Shasta is clearly ignoring the fact that HAL's image is floating above the very same commlink that she has suspended, somehow, in the air above the table.

Khyber turns to Shasta to explain. He seems gentler with her, more willing to be patient than he would with most people. "Having a commlink is useful for communications purposes. If we're all going to be moving and sticking together it may not be as important."

To HAL he says, "Hey, my Ferrets are top-of-the-line! Security spec with satellite uplink and a high-quality improved sensor array. Don't dis my hardware!"

To the rest he adds, "I meant if he put the team together specifically, he must think he needs each of our skills, so we could get a good idea of what kind of trouble he's expecting on the run if we take stock of our specialties."

A short text description pops up on the others' commlinks.
Khyber: 4 year veteran Shadowrunner. Rigger, Armorer, firearms specialist. Military background, with ties to Ares Macrotechnology.

HAL's image sighs and then she replys "Fine if this is the best i can get right now then so be it. Ill take the Dreked ferret,though i dont see what the issue is in leting me have access to your coms. i never said it had to be full access though anyone haring that that has run the shadows for awhile knows that no Hacker would be satisfyed with just limited access. "or i can just keep going though this link as it is, though it is ceap and can bairly handle my proceses.

Shasta listened carefully to Khyber, nodding as he explained that this thing was useful as a communications device. She was still getting the hang of the metahuman need for non physical immediate contact, but she did somewhat understand that there was a value, and purpose, to being able to keep your teammates at hand.
"Wow... That voice is whiney.
"I suppose it can't hurt to have it around. We still haven't decided if you all want to keep an eye on me in the same car. Also, umm... In terms of this thing vibrating, and making noises and stuff. What do I do with it when it does that?" Shasta said, addressing her question to Khyber, who seems to understand the gadget's usefulness. She allows the commlink to float back down into her viewing space, again examining it as it announced the arrival of a text message. Of course, Shasta hadn't the slightest idea what a test message was, or how to retrieve one.

*Nodding towards Khyber* Ok, we got a rigger in the team. I'm useful for magical defence, I assume the nice lady on the table is our Hacker at work. Looking arround towards the other people he adds grinning So what are you other people good for?

He takes a sip from his espresso and looks towards Sashta, gives the vibrating commlink a sceptical glare and mumbles: I hope that's the message from our Mr. JOhnson giving us a little bit additional information for our planning. At the moment this is a complete shot in the dark if you ask me. But hey, I'm sure it'll be fun.

Khyber tries to patiently explain the commlink to Shasta. "When it vibrates, just look at the screen there," he pointed to the ubiquitous rectangular screen with its obliquely chopped off corners, "and see what it says. It could be a text message for you to read, or an incoming voice call, or any number of other things." Noticing Shasta still not following him, he explained further. "A text message is a short piece of written information, like... umm..." How did you explain a text message to a person who had never seen a commlink before? Virtually all written communication was AR these days. "Have you ever seen a book? Written words printed on a page? Well a text message is like that, but instead of paper it's written on the screen."

"Ohhhh!!! A book! I know what those are! Ok, so this is a changing book?" She rotates the Commlink in front of her eyes, reaching up occasionally to touch various parts. Despite that she is clearly using some sort of magic, or something, to hold the Commlink up in front of her face, it's still somewhat disconcerting. Most magicians are not anywhere near as willing as Shasta seems to be to display their power. She seems almost to be the inverse of the typical magician; like she was born and raised using magic, the way a normal metahuman these days are born and raised using technology.
"Why would anyone want a book that changes?" She finally asks, looking at Khyber with a strange curiosity in her eyes. She allows the Commlink to rise up again, above her field of vision, so that she can make clean eye contact with Khyber. She is clearly either entirely oblivious of HAL, still projecting herself above the Commlink, or is ignoring her intentionally.

Khyber takes a moment to think, and then explains. "Because you can change it to how you want it. Commlinks are portable, but they can contain or access every book ever written, every television and trideo and sim and piece of information out there on the Matrix. It's like having to carry one book with you, that magically changes into whatever book you want to read at the time."

As the discussion between Khyber and Sashta evolves, Havoc looks with his mouth slightly open from on to the other (and ocasionally to the hovering commlink and HALs image). His face clearly shows an increasing amount of disbelieve. But he doesn't say anything. Maybe he is just hoping for this to be a daydream and when he wakes up from his 10 second sleep during the Johnson-Meeting he will look at his professional colleagues planing seriously how to earn the next cash by surviving a run and fulfilling the goals.

Drake smirks at the idea of giving hal access to his com. He takes out what looks like a palm pilot from his pocket and with a few strokes of the keypad he grants hal full access to his com







~The following info pops up on everyones display:
Drake: 5 year veteran Shadowrunner. Muscle and firearms specialist. Military background, with ties to several companies one in particular Ares Macrotechnology.
~

"Ok, I think I got it." She says, allowing the Commlink to lower to the table, settling carefully onto the table-top just in time for another bout of buzzing to interrupt her thoughts. She looks down at the Commlink, and then back to the group. Shasta still hasn't figured out what to do with the thing yet, but she figured that that was enough playing with gadgets for now.
"Oh, Ahm, Well, I'm excellent at hiding. Well, actually, I do lots of stuff. I'm really good with hiding, but I can also help other people hide, move faster, I can hide objects, and move them." She says to the group, introducing herself.
"Oh, also, I am a pretty decent backup magician. I can help out, and stuff." She smiles in Havoc's direction, knowing that there was a very good probability that he was a much more proficient magician than she. Of course, there was little possibility that anyone noticed her coming in to the room; or even when she "acquired" the cup of coffee, - Including the security cameras! She thought to herself, noting that likely even the Security Cameras didn't notice when she came in, nor when she "Appropriated" her cup of coffee.
Shasta picked up her cup of coffee and poured an indeterminate amount in to her mouth, setting it down and imitating what Metahumans do, wiping her mouth with a paper napkin. She determined that she was going to have to start to pay attention to the "eating" and "drinking" habits a little more carefully. There was a delicacy to it, when nourishment was not an issue.

You have your conversation everyone gets to know everyone else... and the three days passes (if you wanna do something during that time please let me know ill edit this present p get me those rolls for Monty please) uneventfully except for the fact that your blue pass dissipates from your com "Strange" you think. finally the day arrives for the run and you get up groggy but ready those of you who don't sleep HAL your com clock alerts you to this fact, and Shasta you feel compelled (Since time means nothing to you lol) to 125th st. area...

Everyone with a COM that knows what to do with it, gets a ring from what appears to be Slick Tony's COM

Message begins:

Rise and shine man time to get ready meet me at 125th st Monorail station front door at 12:30 time to earn your nu yin ha ha ha badda bing!

Message ends:

(Havic i need to know if your going to be in the COM given to Shasta or you going to take KJ up on his offer. he gave you full access to his com and i did not read you inhabited it so if you wanna make it your home node cool but your gonna have to make few rolls i think so let me know k post up guys even stuff you did over the three days Jah ni )

Khyber leaves his coffin hotel (at which he has several drones watching his back) and heads to the destination. Parking his SUV on the next street over, he makes it to the station on foot. Looking around for his contacts, he will be nonchalant to avoid people thinking him anything but just another guy waiting for a train.

Infiltration (1) + Agility (6) = 7 dice, 2 Hits

Havoc wakes up and looks at the humming commlink with a slight frown. Moving the empty bottles at the floor with his feet he walks towards the table and reads the message. Oh hell I'm going to regret this. This is by far the worst planned run I ever started. He takes a shower, packs his backpack and tries to remember which route leads to this station without too much police controls and where he could find a talismonger on his way that sells psyche [Intuition 4 + Local Area Knowledge 4 = 3 hits, Psyche s. p.250 SR4]. He stops two times on his way, first at the talismonger to buy a single dose of psyche in an easy to ingest form [OOC: pill, inhalator or similar]. Second he buys a sandwich and a soy-coffee, trying not to think about the difference between this and the espresso a few days ago. Slowly waking up he makes his way to the meeting point.

Shasta spends the evening with her group of friends. For some reason, they had a different schedule that most of the other Metahumans out there (most, but certainly not all). She always found it amusing that this particular group would habitually spend an entire evening, night, and early morning studying magic with her. She often ended up watching the sun rise as the group was "turning in" for the end of their night. This past evening was particularly interesting in that the small group was interested in bringing in another friend, and they were looking to see what they could do to help Shasta incorporate the new friend in to the group.

As morning broke, and her friends all turned in, Shasta floated her way through the walls and enjoyed watching the Sun "come up", as the metahumans like to say. The interesting perspective that the Sun is the moving portion of the relationship was always particularly amusing to Shasta, since it was so far from reality. It just went to underscore her other observations: that Metahumans were astonishingly good at ignoring reality.
Her reverie, and thought process, was broken by a noise. It took Shasta several minutes to realize what was causing the noise, since a commlink is so far from her normally considered outfit. She had been trying to remember that she had the thing day after day, and keeping it nearby most of the time. Although, she rarely actually carried it, since it would fall to the ground, or worse, if she ever stopped Materializing. At least with psychokineticism, she could keep it physically close to her (plus or minus some bumps and bruises on buildings) at all times.
Shasta didn't have the slightest notion what to do with the Commlink, but assumed that this was a signal to arrive at the meeting place, and took off toward where she needed to meet the group. It never took her long to travel, since she didn't have to follow the same rules that the Metahuman's do. She arrived within a few minutes of the phone call, taking her place in the physical world as some nearby mundane object, to continue to observe the passersby until her group showed up.

Drake wakes to the sound of his alarm sounding from his com

~Wake up its 11 am u have one unheard message first unheard message

Message begins:

Rise and shine man time to get ready meet me at 125th st Monorail station front door at 12:30 time to earn your nu yin ha ha ha badda bing!

Message ends:


He listens to the message and smirks " Party time!!" He glances down at his watch he has about an hour to get to the 125th st station. He arrives a block away from the station. The time is now noon. He grabs a bite to eat and a soy cafe. He wasn't to fond of the synthetic stuff but takes what he can get. He walks up the stairs into the station wearing his black leather trench coat his com over his left ear.

125th street Manhattan mid day after Present P gets there

Meeting slick tony: When you get to 125th street its pretty bright in the mid day sun but the mono rail and tall buildings do much to block that out. Down one way you see a long street full of vehicles and down the other you see street vendors of all kinds trying to attract customers. Suddenly you hear one of those two fingered whistles, from your immediate left! Its S. Tony, and he waves you over to where he’s got the bulldog parked. It’s across the street but still under the monorail tracks. It looks like the van has been made up to look like some kind of commercial vehicle. Some times people in the Terminal district needed stuff done. Some of the clubs and a lot of the crooks. So now and then trucks like this pass through. Windows in the back were replaced with some kind of metallic paneling, it was painted white with a red logo of an obscure ma and pop company not uncommon in Manhattan and (seats were removed to make room for cargo, tools and the like.) All looks well from you vantage point...

You make your way to him, dodging the various cars on their way past you. And ST puts a hand out for you to shake “Good to see you, glad you could make it” he says. He looks skittish but who would not be... When the whole gang is assembled he asks “Who’s in the front and who’s in the back? And who’s my second? The one that’s going with me on the actual deal...

Khyber thinks out loud about that for a second. "Drake's probably the best 'muscle'. I'm a decent all-rounder but I'm useless with magic. Havoc's your guy for that. Shasta's probably better as an ace-in-the-hole than a visible front woman. I'm kind of skinny, so if you want impressive and imposing, I'd go with Drake," he suggested.

Khyber had noted that there seemed to be a significant amount of skills overlap in the team, which was heartening. There were specialists in all areas, but also backups who seemed competent if not as outstanding as the specialists would be. While he'd put himself up against Drake in any run-and-gun battle, the bigger man would have a clear advantage in close combat. Hal, their hacker, was probably one of those people who can only become so good because they sit at home in their mama's basement and do pretty much nothing else. While Khyber himself could hack in a pinch, he'd have nowhere near that kind of competence. Havoc was a dedicated magic man, and Shasta had demonstrated what seemed to Khyber to be confirmed competency in that area as well. She also covered a stealth, which he guessed most of the others could do with some level of skill. You didn't get to be a repeat 'Runner if you weren't able to be discrete when called upon to do so. Khyber with his small army of drones could cover surveillance very well, and he was sure that one or the other of the magefolk would be able to contribute in that area as well.

Cheddar was an enigma; the man was deucedly hard to read. He'd have to trust that if he was here, he was useful, and leave it to that. He'd known quite a few 'people' people in his time, and one thing was for sure about all of them; they always surprised you.

He reserved judgement on Tony; if he had to pin him into a box, he'd say 'mid-level mob lieutenant', which meant that he had some basic knowledge of tactics, was decently quick-thinking, and could handle himself in a dust-up, if it came down to that, but would probably hang back and let them do most of the work. That was what they were being paid for, after all.

Khyber sent a signal out to his SUV to swing by the van; he had an inkling that he'd need to stock up on a few items before they left. When the SUV arrived, he quickly grabbed a large duffel bag containing his Ares Alpha and his extra clips of ammo of various types out of the floor of the backseat; once they got into Terminal, nobody would care what he was packing, and the extra firepower could be useful if things went south. He put the duffle bag into the Bulldog as well as a bag containing some armoring tools (a Kit's worth), and his folded-up Transys Steed, and four each of Ferrets and Dragonflies. They didn't take up much space, and would be much more useful onsite than back at his truck. He'd send the SUV as close to Terminal as possible so as to avoid launching the Roto-drones unless he needed them; they could get to wherever he was in a hurry if it came down to it, so long's they didn't have to fly halfway across the city. If he needed them, chances were the fecal matter had already hit the rotary air-circulation device.

So the team agrees on Drake for point man and...

“The rest of yous have to watch, and wait that’s the plan. We’re dealing with the Yellow Dragons today guy’s. Their pretty tough in their circles, but i bet you guys could handle the whole lot of them badda bing! badda boom! you know what im saying! Anyway they playing proxy for a local tong named Fat Lou... Some of yous might know of him. Some might not... Any ways he wants what i got in the van see. So I’m gonna sell it to him through his Gangers say it with me the Yellow Dragons... Oh and don’t go peeking at the creates. Yous in the back Ok?

The way there is uneventful you pass through the 34th and 7th street check point and a Guard approaches the Vehicle... “Pass and ID” he says without looking at the driver. To busy scanning the Van for its numbers and registrations... Its obvious that he dose not need to ask for it. Since its supposed to be broad cast at all times right? So whats he at...? (Anyone wishing to make a perception check should do so now!)

Khyber wonders since when cops in Manhattan (or any modern city, really) ask for passes manually. Studying the man through the window, he watches for any signs of anything untowards.

Perception: Intuition (4) + Perception (1) = 5 dice, 4 hits

Drake glances out the windshield at all the huge skyscrapers in the distnce remembering the last time he was here was a really long time ago. The cops always had him on edge since they tended to abuse there authority. he stayed as quiet as possible so the team makes it to there destination.

Just as your about to lie, you hear a flush from the side where the men’s room is... An officer comes out tucking his shirt in his pants. He looks up in surprise when he sees the Van done up like a business Van. And he runs up to the other officer "I got this one mike." He says and he hurries over nods to slick Tony on the way. The first officer nods back though it was not for him, and he plays the background. Cpt. Rodriguez steps up to the driver, while the Lt. watches slick tony... The Cpt. asks Khyber “Whats your business in terminal district...?”

"Just making a delivery, sir." Khyber answered truthfully. Sure he wouldn't mention the mob connection or the large amount of guns and ammo currently occupying the rear area of the van, let alone the unknown cargo Slick Tony was unloading. "A quick stop in Terminal before I make my way down to SoHo." Also not a lie. SoHo was likely to be the best direction to exit Terminal, through Southside where security on the border between Southside and Terminal was occasionally spotty.

Khyber wasn't a very good liar, so he had always found the expedient thing to do was simply give the people the truth, just in the minimum necessary dose. His appearance could be that of half a million lower-middle class wage-slaves, and he had the advantage that, much like them, he REALLY DID just want to do his job and go home. The trick was to give just enough to not seem like you wanted to hide stuff, without giving away anything that you didn't want people to know.

Shasta enjoyed this "jostling and jumbling" of the group as they all filed in to the Van. She found herself a "seat" amongst the crates. Since she didn't have any body, "comfort" wasn't some thing that Shasta had learned to demand yet, since she still didn't have the least understanding for why a metahuman would want to sit in one seat versus another. Further, since she was always viewing both the Astral and physical planes, Shasta didn't have any reason to worry about her "perceptive" capacity either, making the "shotgun" seat somewhat irrelevant to her. Of course, the benefit of all of that is that she didn't mind the least being in amongst the crates instead of getting one of the "good" seats.

Riding along in the Van, Shasta continued her perception of her surroundings, paying particular attention to how the relative living conditions for the people living near the Terminal district changed as they got closer. Shasta didn't have the least understanding of what made one area desirable, but another less so.

Perception Rolls: Physical Perception: 0; Astral Perception: 3.

Shasta some of the time forgets that there is actually useful information on the physical plane. Thereby completely ignoring any information that she could be gaining from the physical world. Today, it would seem, was no different. She was looking around, but really only paying attention to the Astral. OOC: that was the best explanation I could come up with for 0 successes on Physical

Slick Tony leans in to speak to officer Rodriguez "Parts and technical group for the forest moon... club." he says and then he leans back in his seat the first cop looks incredulously at ST! But officer Rodriguez waves you on not even looking at his subordinate... you move on

When you get to the dirty, smelly, whole in the wall of an ally. Four separate dilapidated buildings make up this four way crevice, and the walls are littered with garbage cans and dumpsters. The Gang members are already in place. They seem to have been waiting for a while, but they don’t look up and at’em until you stop the van. One of them approaches the van and looks at the driver, then at the anyone else in the front. He then turns his head back to the gang and nods. He backs off the van and moves back to his team. he whispers in one of their ears. And the member waves Slick Tony in. The ally is poorly lit but light enough that you don’t need thermal vis. or nothing. ST looks at Drake "You and me are up fly boy. Open her up and let me out, when you think its safe k? Oh and try and look like you done this before k?"

One member steps out of the shadows sporting an armored Jacket and yellow bandanna. The obvious leader steps up with one comrade in tow....