| Sam | Katsina | |
| "Принесите мне орк!" the former troll screams, shaking the night forest. | I... have no idea what that means, the Masked Woman thinks to herself. I speak... Romanian? Da, vorbesc română. | |
| Sam reaches out to seize the woman but the action is sluggish. Moving his arms feels like pushing them through water, or syrup. He extends a hand - or, rather, a claw - but moving it is like trying to scratch his way out of a cast-iron glove. | "Shh, shh, it will be alright," Katsina shushes, half-sincere. She's glad she put the spell in place to hold him. She grabs his hands and uses her magically augmented strength to push them gently back down to Sam's chest. Her gloves smoulder slightly on contact with Sam's skin. Well, I have more, she thinks. | |
| Sam, overstimulated, continues to struggle. It's too much for his brain; it's like he woke up twice. There's a new world layered on top of the old world and it's making his head split. He slams his eyes shut but only one of the worlds goes away. The other stays, bright as an explosion at night. | "You're assensing," Katsina tries to explain, knowing that he's probably not listening, and even if he were he probably wouldn't understand. "I wish I could tell you what it was like for me, but I can't remember. I just remember black." | |
| He rolls his head around, searching for a view that doesn't blind him. The trees ... shine like spotlights. The earth ... glows with life. There are ... flying people in the sky? | Katsina looks around, trying to see what he would see. "Those are spirits, Sam," she says, pointing up to the sky, wheezing at the effort of sustaining the spell that holds him. "Snow spirits, storm spirits. Spirits of this place." | |
| Sam looks at himself and sees his arms and legs bound by magical energy. It doesn't make any sense. He looks toward a voice that seems to be speaking to him. It's a ... woman, who is shrouded in a spell herself. She kneels next to him, but there's something covering her face. It's dazzling, powerful. He can't see through it. | "It's me," she says calmly. "Katsina. Illeana. Mask." She wonders how to calm his fevered mind. "You always wanted to see me without the mask, right?" She whispers to herself in Sperethiel and removes it. Looking down at him, she gives a small smile. | |
| The fomóraig turns to look. His natural eyes see the spell she has woven, the young Hopi maiden dressed as a rancher. His new eyes see what lies beneath. She blazes with the power of a maximum force spell. | The vampire keeps her eyes locked with his. She holds onto his hands, hoping to comfort him. The acid eats away through the gloves, turning them to tatters. She holds his hands still, stomaching the burn while her skin knits itself back together. | |
| Sam stops resisting and slumps down, delirious. | "I will guide the best I can," Katsina says, sitting back. She washes her hands on the snow and lets her skin heal. | |
| The man slips into dreamtime. A time out of time. Everywhen. The stars stop, then reverse, but time marches forward still. Music drifts into his frame of vision, but not the notes. The feelings. The emotions. It's if they had their own taste, or scent. He feels them as certainly as he feels the bonfire. | The woman wraps her arms around her knees, stuffing her hands up the sleeves of her lined jacket so they don't go numb. She rocks back and forth, humming a lullabye that may or may not have words. She's too tired to think of them; the spell took too much out of her. | |
| Sam looks over to Katsina, but she's not there anymore. Instead, there is Bear. He is large as a grizzly and sits as a bear would sit, but he is improbably purple. He speaks to Sam in Russian. "I am Bear," he introduces himself. "A bear?" Sam asks unsteadily, uncertain if he's actually speaking aloud or not. "Bear," he corrects. Sam nods. "I will be with you from now on. Even when you cannot see me, I will be deep within." Sam breathes steadily, listening. "I chose you, Rozhki. I demand much from my followers, but more is given." "What must I do?" "We - you and I - are strength and protection. We are ferocious defenders, safeguarding our friends and families. No harm can come to them. "We are powerful, but gentle and wise. We move slowly until we move fast. We are slow to anger, but terrifying in battle. We are guardians of the natural world." "I understand," Sam says. "Not yet, but you will," Bear replies, and then he is gone. | Katsina turns to stare into her fire, which has burned continuously since her Imbolc festival. Hecate, what should I do? Katsina prays, studying the dancing shape of the flames. "What you've always done," the Goddess replies. "Help him. Help them all." What if it's too much for him? she pleads. What if he attacks one of the others? "It is a risk," the Goddess acknowledges. "You must equip them for the danger they now face." Katsina nods. "You must appreciate how important the obelisk is. You must support every ally you can find, no matter their shape or form." But how many am I condemning to die to allow him to live? How many must I kill to live? How can I call our lives greater than all of those that we will take to sustain us? "If you succeed, you will save many more than you could ever take. Many more. The scales have been weighed, and yours is not the heavier. "I chose you, Illeana. You are precisely where you must be to do what you must do." I understand, Katsina thinks. "Not yet, but you will," the Goddess replies, and then she is gone. | |
| Sam's eyes snap open. There's a rush of air as he inhales the cold mountain wind, filling his lungs with the first breath of his new life. | Katsina turns and smiles to Sam. She slips her mask back into place, whispers to it, and then feels safe again. |
"You're assensing. I wish I could tell you what it was like for me, but I can't remember. I just remember black."
"Those are spirits, Sam; Snow spirits, storm spirits. Spirits of this place."
"It's me, Katsina. Illeana. Mask. You always wanted to see me without the mask, right?"
"I will guide the best I can,"
"What happened to the bear?"
"Am I... like you, now?"
"You are a fomóraig now. Not like me, not exactly. You can still eat other things. Plants, pizza. You will need to consume meathuman meat, yes, but not every meal. You should be able to go a week on normal food, maybe even a month if you really stretch it. The only thing you can't eat is cooked meat. It will make you sick."
She reaches out and touches his arm; Sam sees her aura blaze as she cast a spell. The glow dies down and the spell sinks into him, hovering just over the surface of his body. His new sight can see the spell clearly. His old eyes see... his old skin. His old body, untransformed. He rubs his hands together and feels that the nodules are gone. But yet... he can tell that it's not real. Katsina coughs and wheezes.
"I'm sorry. It's not a very good casting, I am very tired. I will do a better one tomorrow. One we can make permanent."
"Do you want to sit up? If you're too dizzy I can feed you."
Her enhanced sense of smell has no trouble picking up Doc's cooking. "Doc," she calls out. "Leave some meat uncooked. Sam can only eat raw meat. Everything else can be cooked."
"At this rate, we're going to have the strangest dinner parties."
"I'm sorry we couldn't stop this, but we'll all do whatever we can going forward to help you adjust. And you are still a part of this team for as long as you want to be."
"There is much to discuss after you find someplace safer to stay. The tent won't protect you from the sun, so you can't stay here. Your secretions will destroy the van, so you can't stay there. We can maybe dig an ice cave with a dogleg or two in it - that should do. Past that, we need to discuss-"
"We need to discuss how we're going to get you into the van without making it unusable-"
"There's nothing that says that we have to take the van anywhere, or that Sam has to go in it. We were already talking about arranging for a meet in the wilderness, in terrain that suits us. I'm not a tactician so I don't know whether we want to be somewhere flat or somewhere like this. The valley makes for a good chokepoint, although it does make escape hard for us."
" What about how we're going to feed you - maybe thaw one of those bandersnatchii - and how we're going to move forward with trading the artifact. Your preference will probably tend toward the nocturnal, but for the next few days or even weeks you'll have to stick to a diurnal schedule. Being in much the same boat, Katsina will be more help with that than I, but I'll be happy to answer any other questions I can about your new abilities as they relate to magic and the Astral."
"You are already aware of your ability to perceive the Astral realm. The research that Doc has done indicate that you may have some limited ability to shunt mana - disrupt spells, so to speak."
"Well don't you look like emulsified bull-drek? I'm just fucking with you, chummer. You look fucking scary. Well, ya know, more so."
<<@To whom it may concern
I know very few things, lacking even my own name or where I came from, so I won't waste time with a backstory. Such a thing wouldn't be important anyway. What is important is the fact that I have in my possession, an ancient artifact, the likes of which the world has not seen in tens of thousands of years as well as the means to destroy it with a mere thought, should I desire to. The power contained in this artifact is so great, that when I destroy it, there is a very good chance it will tear the very fabric of this world asunder with catastrophic results across all continents. I do not want to do this, but will do so without a second thought, if pressed.
What must you do to keep me from doing this? My demands are quite simple:
1- Contact either The Draco Foundation, The Atlantean Foundation, The Dunkelzahn Institute of Magical Research, or The Astral Space Preservation Society. Send them a copy of this message.
2- I want a representative from any or all of those four groups to come meet me and take this damn thing from me.
That's all there is to it. To stop the destruction of your world, all you need do is come take this foul chunk of metal from me and remove the millstone from around my neck. If you are the offended party from whom I stole it, I'll even give it back for no more a fee than an explanation of events. Fair warning though, I am heavily armed and well supported by some of the most paranoid and trigger happy killers in the world. If you attempt to take it from me by force or deception, you will die. I've killed too many already and I don't want any more blood on my hands. PLEASE make certain this message finds its way to the proper eyes.
[Uncle Sam]>>
"Our Sam is still in there, somewhere. I can see it in his aura. I can't imagine how powerful the Hunger is for him, but it may very well be too much for him to control. But Katsina has a point - Bear might be able to help him where we could not. Mighty Bear, would you please show yourself so that all might see you?" Bear obliges, his massive form coalescing into view only a few feet from the fire crackling in the middle of the makeshift camp. The spirit takes the form of a Grizzly Bear over ten feet tall, brown hair offering stark contrast in the snow but making it harder to pick out against the cloudy night sky. The spirit settles back down on all fours - still over five feet tall at the shoulders - and saunters over to where Sam lay in the snow. It sniffs at him in mild concern, then rests on its haunch as it takes up watch.
Looking at the downed troll, Ace begins rifling through Sam's belongings and comes back with a commlink, which he tosses to Doc, before unslinging his Lancer as he stands above Sam's inert form.
"I was hoping to give Sam the chance to come clean himself, but he told me about this before he was bit. Apparently, he's been dropping these things around like little shadowrunner breadcrumbs. Things are potentially more complicated as a result. Katsina, what are the chances he's going to be just the same when he wakes back up?"
When Doc looks at the commlink, he sees:<<@To whom it may concern
I know very few things, lacking even my own name or where I came from, so I won't waste time with a backstory. Such a thing wouldn't be important anyway. What is important is the fact that I have in my possession, an ancient artifact, the likes of which the world has not seen in tens of thousands of years as well as the means to destroy it with a mere thought, should I desire to. The power contained in this artifact is so great, that when I destroy it, there is a very good chance it will tear the very fabric of this world asunder with catastrophic results across all continents. I do not want to do this, but will do so without a second thought, if pressed.
What must you do to keep me from doing this? My demands are quite simple:
1- Contact either The Draco Foundation, The Atlantean Foundation, The Dunkelzahn Institute of Magical Research, or The Astral Space Preservation Society. Send them a copy of this message.
2- I want a representative from any or all of those four groups to come meet me and take this damn thing from me.
That's all there is to it. To stop the destruction of your world, all you need do is come take this foul chunk of metal from me and remove the millstone from around my neck. If you are the offended party from whom I stole it, I'll even give it back for no more a fee than an explanation of events. Fair warning though, I am heavily armed and well supported by some of the most paranoid and trigger happy killers in the world. If you attempt to take it from me by force or deception, you will die. I've killed too many already and I don't want any more blood on my hands. PLEASE make certain this message finds its way to the proper eyes.
[Uncle Sam]>>
She turns to Doc.
"Do you need to be in town when they call? If so, that would be another reason to set the deadline for this afternoon, so that you don't have to stay in town all night."
She pulls out three throwing knifes and begins to turn them into alchemical preparations.
"I want you to have these before you go," she says to Doc, Chino, and Ohanzee. "They'll warn you of danger, and keep you out of harm's way." She scribbles geometric figures on them using the ash from the fire. "All you have to do is rub the ash off, and it will trigger."
<<<@Team [Doc] I still think doing the inital meet in VR would probably be our safest initial contact. If Chino doesn't mind, Ohanzee can just use the SIM module in his comm and I can keep an eye on him and keep up safe. This will expose us all the least, while allowing our Negotiator the most freedom to interact with our counterparts from DIMR. It's also the fastest to set up. We can simply pick a public host to meet in and exchange data before exchaning goods.>>>
"Good morning. Do you remember what happened?"
She blinks once as Ohanzee calls out her companions. If she's surprised, she doesn't show it outside of this one tiny flutter.Doc's face twitches in an almost smile in spite of himself at the compliment, then he quickly returns to his stoic vissage.
She lifts a finger off the table as a signal. They step forward, materializing against the white background of the the walls. They have classical styling that conflicts with her modern appearance. One is dressed as the wingéd god Hermes - Doc immediately recognizes the god's caduceus, and wonders if that's a message to him. The other is a black, cloaked, concealed figure; after some cross-referencing Doc concludes it is Erebus, god of darkness and shadow. Potentially another reference to you or your profession.
"You are ably represented," she says dispassionately, her eyes darting to Ohanzee's black-suited bodyguard, looming behind with sunglasses like a Secret Service agent.
Ms. Jäger jumps on the number quickly. "25 million Aztlan Pesos. Done."Doc knows this can't be right and sends Ohanzee the exchange rate.
Doc quickly looks up the exchange rate and finds that it translates to ¥50,000. Ohanzee informs her that, no, he had meant nuyen.
"[...]Let us take the number I used before and double it. ¥100,000 for you to split among yourselves as you see fit. A handsome, six-figure payday, and the relief of no longer being pursued by the former owners, especially if they are corrupted as you say."... and he nearly chokes in disbelief at the lowball offer. He, trusts Ohanzee to take this in stride, but knows he never could. Watching Ohanzee work, he has a new appreciation of the diminutive mage.
"Vrykolakiviridae (HMHVV I) retroviruses are only spread through transmission of bodily fluids in conjunction with a vampiric attack. The actual retroviral transformation is triggered when the victim’s life energies are depleted; the dispersal of the victim’s aura is apparently halted and partially reversed by the virus. The transformed metahuman possesses vampiric or cannibalistic dietary requirements depending upon on their metatype. Each metatype is vulnerable to particular species of vrykolakiviridae, and there is substantial disparity in expression, including vampires, wendigo, nosferatu..." She prattles on, oblivious to Ace's body language cues begging her to stop.
One bit did grab Ace's attention, maybe because he thought he may have understood it. "Wait, 'dispersal of the aura'? So, the uh, 'victim' maintains memories, or a core personhood, or whatever, but are they the same, like personality-wise? I mean, like with what happened to us, we've been talking about whether or not we're the same people we were before, right? Does HMHVV leave a Katsina who was very much like the Katsina before but with a new dietary requirement, or did it change you? Do you know?"
>>>>>(Anybody got a bead on this chica heading up DIMR in Denver? She gives me a funny tingling sensation I haven't felt since that year at the Catholic parochial school.)<<<<< --Bugs Gunny
>>>>>(Corper slot, through and through. Drinks on me if she catches a hot one in the back of the head.)<<<<< --Twinkle Toes
>>>>>(Rewind. DIMR is not a corporation, it's a foundation. They might look the same from below but there's a difference. Speaking of 'below', word is Jäger started on the street herself. Orphan, maybe refugee, survived by the Grace of God and being too stubborn to die. She's held numerous positions at the DIMR, each for 18 months or less as she keeps getting promoted. She might look like a corper to the mouthbreathers, but the truth is she's a survivor, and a steamroller.)<<<<< --Holyoake
>>>>>(Check her SIN. 5T2G-8U6V-PK02 – the recipient of "one wish" from the Draco Foundation per Dunkelzahn's Will.)<<<<< --General Wintergreen
>>>>>(Forget her. I'm more worried about Tamara Nimbus, who is on the Board at DIMR. TAMAra NimbUS = TAMANOUS. Open your eyes, sheeple! DIMR sees you and me the same way Dear Old Dunkie did: as food.)<<<<< --Ryan
"I don't know anything about comms or radio silence," she says apologetically. "I trust Doc and he's the one who messaged us initially. But I trust you too, and you're here with me now, so I'll follow your lead." She smiles at him hopefully.
<<@Team [Ace] If the individual we met with is a technomancer posing as Jager, any idea on how that individual could have intercepted our original message? If a well-planned dead-drop is ineffective, we may need to rely on meatspace investigations.>>
"Chino votes to break it apart. It would take some time - I don't know if we'd need to use an elemental like Chino suggests or if we'd have to use something explosive cooked up by Sam. In theory it should work, and I'm pretty good working with magical objects but..." Her voice trails off, somewhat in awe. "This thing is on another level. It would be like asking a Civil War doctor to remove a cyberarm from a troll. You can do it clumsily, but to do it cleanly... It's just so much more advanced than anything we've made in the Sixth World..."
"If we decide to part the thing out, how much time would it take you to adjust your little insurance policy to fit the new form-factor?"
| Element | Price per KG | Estimated KG | Value |
| Iron | ¥0.1 | 71.8 | ¥7 |
| Mercury | ¥4.0 | 54.2 | ¥217 |
| Silicon | ¥2.5 | 7.7 | ¥19 |
| Gold | ¥26,000.0 | 53.7 | ¥1,396,160 |
| Silver | ¥290.0 | 44.7 | ¥12,963 |
| Copper | ¥5.0 | 28.1 | ¥140 |
| Osmium | ¥12,860.0 | 63.8 | ¥820,645 |
"Doc, Ace, Sam, what do you think?" she asks, uncertain of what she wants to hear.
"One last option is to simply drop it off on the doorstep of the DIMR with Sam's present attached and then they can decide whether it's worth a few million for us to not blow it up. They can have whoever they want inspect it but we set the time limit. I don't want to negotiate that way, but we've got our own bats if they insist on playing hardball."
"One last option is to simply drop it off on the doorstep of the DIMR with Sam's present attached and then they can decide whether it's worth a few million for us to not blow it up. They can have whoever they want inspect it but we set the time limit. I don't want to negotiate that way, but we've got our own bats if they insist on playing hardball."
Ace turns his head sharply to regard Ohanzee at the final suggestion. Cold, calculated, it was the strategy of the terrorist, and in a way it was brilliant. "I'm not sure that we have the time at our disposal to reach an acceptable success rate, but I like it. Let's work on it as a plan B to our plan D."
"Ace is right that we will have people chasing us, but as runners there's a good chance we have a long list of people chasing us. Adding the cult is just another. Fading into the shadows and moving on is what we do. I'm ready to move on from this particular adventure and find the next one. Likely far far away. ¥250k isn't a fortune, but it'll get us some shiny new SINs and a smugglers route to Seattle or San Francisco, or where ever you want to go."
"We all seem to have, at most, limited connections to the area with Ohanzee's being the most concrete in the people he knew before the accident. I'm ready to move on."[/color]
"It stings to leave money on the table, but ¥250,000 isn't anything to be upset about. In our prior lives, I think we all would have considered that a pretty good payday. And, as Doc says, it's enough to start over. Time is not on our side here."
"And as long as coming back with our tail between our legs is an option that's on the table, we might want to consider Sam's Johnson." She looks at Sam, uncertain if he'll be offended by the notion. "Obviously they parted on hostile terms, and the Johnson may be responsible for some of the crews coming after us, but we don't even have to represent ourselves as being associated with Sam. We could pose as, ah, troubleshooters that relieved Sam of the artifact, found the Johnson's commcode in Sam's records, and would like to deliver."
"Sure." says the beast in a defeated tone. "Whatever." He stays seated with his eyes closed, trying to learn to identify each of his team-mates by aura alone.
The former troll opens his eyes again and looks Katsina in hers. He wears an ambivalent frown on his monstrous face as he speaks. "Sure." A sigh. "Whatever." He looks around at the rest of the team and wonders if they're as tired as he is, as hungry as he is, as utterly empty and dead inside as he is. They simply must be. Poor bastards.[/quote]
"Consider me to be in favor of whatever it takes to get this damn rock out of our lives."
"Why don't you set the charges that we need for the avalanche traps?" Katsina suggests. "You have more practical, hands-on experience explosives than anyone here. You can shape the charges for maximum effectiveness."
"If we're worried about proximity and possibly being caught up in the avalanche, I can set them off," Katsina says, looking around the circle to the men. "My mask has an air tank in case I get buried, and if I can't dig my way out then I can use mist form to free myself. I could create a Physical Barrier preparation to shield myself. If it doesn't hold, then avalanche itself might hurt but I'll mend. I always do."
| Element | Price per KG | Estimated KG | Value |
| Iron | ¥0.1 | 93.5 | ¥9 |
| Mercury | ¥4 | 68.9 | ¥276 |
| Silicon | ¥2.5 | 38.2 | ¥96 |
| Gold | ¥26,000 | 18.2 | ¥473,200 |
| Silver | ¥290 | 46.4 | ¥13,456 |
| Copper | ¥5 | 15.5 | ¥78 |
| Osmium | ¥12,860 | 43.5 | ¥559,410 |
"Ace, you blame yourself for what happened to Sam, and at some level I expect you are trying to prod him in to attacking you so that you can get the punishment you think you deserve, but please, don't poke the bear - as cathartic as fisticuffs might be, it could seriously set back the progress Sam has made in adapting to his new condition."
"What's the relationship between DIMR and the Atlantean Foundation?" Katsina asks, restating the question. "That's easy: they're huge rivals. I'm not sure they'd murder each other in the streets, but they fight tooth and nail for the same funding and the same research projects. It's complicated by the fact that Dunkelzahn's Will specifically put a member of the Atlantean Foundation on the Board of the DIMR. That could be why Jäger said that buying the artifact would put her in an awkward position vis-à-vis the Atlantean Foundation. Or maybe she's stepped on some toes over there and she's could be concerned that the Atlanteans could be orchestrating all of this and are trying to embarrass her - or worse - by dumping a fraudulent piece of rock on her for a huge sum.
"Things are more familial between the Draco Foundation and DIMR, or DIMR and the Astral Space Preservation Society. The Draco Foundation established both of them. The ASPS is nominally under the administration of the DIMR but the ASPS is relatively independent since they have separate sources of funding. (Hestaby is supposed to be a big patron.) The Denver office of the ASPS almost certainly has its own executive officer - I doubt it would roll up to Jäger, even if they share the same offices - but whoever it is they're probably on a first-name basis.
"As for the Draco Foundation, I think the DIMR sees itself more as a sibling but the Draco Foundation sees DIMR more as a daughter. To use the family metaphor, that could result in some sibling rivalry, or some daddy issues, but I think at the end of the day they realize they are on the same team. Jäger would absolutely know the local head of the Draco Foundation very well professionally, and likely socially too."
"Ok, so that seems to make either two of the big three problematic to reach out to. And nobody seems keen on unloading the thing on Ares. With nuyen running low it seems we either continue to let our resources dwindle on a long shot, or we break it up and trust our collective instincts in the shadows. Since that seems to be the consensus, let's move forward on that in the morning. In the meantime, I say we get Sam's bomb on it now, decide on security for the night, and break it up in the morning.
"We need Sam operational, so it would be best for him to get some more rest after finishing with prepping avalanches. Doc, do you need most of the night for your matrix wizardry, or can you help with overwatch? The rest of us should be set for our collective shifts as needed, right?"
"For the record, I don't have any objections to the artifact going to Ares,"
"I'm under no illusions that Ares is benevolent, dispassionate third-party, but I trust them a hell of a lot more than Aztechnology. Ares Firewatch teams took out the Universal Brotherhood twenty years ago, so they're obviously capable of acting for the greater good as long as the greater good benefits them as well. The only question is would Ares pay for it, or would they expect Ace to bring it back without restrictions."[/color] She looks to Ace to see if he has thoughts on the matter.
["Doc, do we need to do anything special for the satellite uplink? How does that even appear on the Matrix anyway? Does it show up as a device? Does it look suspicious enough for someone to investigate and then maybe swim upstream to our location? I don't know enough about the security of such things."[/color]
"By the way, Doc, before you kill that uplink, I'd like to check my messages."
"Amy Martin is wearing Mortimer of London. I think that's a Summit Dress, the design of which basically hasn't changed in 10 years. Not exactly fashion forward. She doesn't look out-of-place, but it shows a certain lack of imagination, or attention to social posturing."[/color]
She looks to Doc. "Can you work your usual magic on background, maybe a commcode?"
Night slowly passes into not-night. Whale goes to Ohanzee to announce his imminent departure. The team emerges from their various sleeping nooks to find Chino stretching, cracking his knuckles and limbering up.
"We gon' do this?" he asks, hopping up and down. "I'm ready to kick that obelisk into the Seventh World." He guzzles a beer for breakfast, belches, then looks for the green light to begin hammering time.
Sam looks up from his chips with a look that might be a scowl if it had any emotion behind it at Doc and Chino enter the cave.
"News?" he grunts almost hopefully.
After taking a healthy swig of the golden beverage, he shared his thoughts with the group. "Cannon is a winner. He hasn't achieved success by dumb luck, he's achieved it over and again by skill, determination, and hard work. Playing on his emotions would be one hell of a challenge for that reason - passionate people aren't very good at picking themselves up, dusting off, and re-entering the fray. They tend to get angry and take it out on the world. None of his career changes spell out "revenge." He may have strong emotions, perhaps evidenced in the photos, but he keeps them in check, probably focuses them in to overcoming challenges. He might hate Jager, but he won't let that interfere with his job easily."
"-or we can just skip straight to plan 'smash the thing and sell it for parts'. I'm not even sure I care much either way." He takes another swig at his beer.
"Yeah, Cannon sounds like a hard target. But I like the idea of working with capable if the option is available. I agree that emotional manipulation might not be the best way to go. What's the angle, then? We try what we did with Jager, and hope for different results? Ace asks.
Katsina says, "If we can tie it into his organization's core mission then I think we'll do better than if we frame it as a research project or an artistic curio."
Chino takes a route out of town with lots of turns and doubling-back to identify and/or lose any tails. "We're clear," he says.
Doc looks up options for bathing. "If we want baths, I think we're looking at hotels or motels. I suppose a gym or a spa might work. If we want to stay incognito, there's the Colorado River, which should be about zero degrees. Or we could try to find a sweat lodge, if any will take Anglos."
"Where do we wanna shop?" Chino asks. "And when you wanna reach out to this Cannon choomba, O-man?"
"You've got it. That coughing is the flip side of dispelling. When you dispell, you have to resist the drain of the spell. The drain is the fatigue a caster feels when they channel mana through their body. That's what hurt you so badly when you tried to break free of my spell." Her tone is factual, but her body language is apologetic.
"The mana just doesn't seem to flow through you that way," she finally admits. "But the other night" - while you were attacking Chino goes unsaid - "I saw a huge influx of mana into your body. You got stronger, bigger, faster, all in an instant. You also lost some self-control, but don't take it personally. It's more common than not among followers of Bear. He is slow to anger but ferocious when threatened or hurt. Like, 'rage of Achilles' anger. I think you're an adept, Sam," she concludes. "A physical adept. Like Chino." She sits back and looks to see how Sam takes the news, and the comparison.
And in the second, I don't think you fully realize how foreign the concept of pain is to me. For literally the entirety of my memory, I have never experienced it. So stop worrying yourself over my pain."[/color]
"So, I can kill spirits and run on walls?"
"Looks like they'd have some small drones," Doc says, browsing their online listings. "Good prices. ¥1,600 for an MCT Fly-Spy, or a Horizon Flying Eye."
"Have you given any additional thought to my offer to alleviate your allergy to sunlight? I understand if you're uncomfortable with someone else's spell on you at all times. But, if you're willing, I can do that, as well as the spell which I use to mask my appearance. It will provide you with some semblance of a normal life, instead of lingering on the periphery of society for the rest of your years. And, to that end, I can also provide a spell which will alert you in advance to danger. It works a bit differently for everyone. Some people feel a buzz in the base of their skull; other people hear a voice in their head warning them. I know you're hard to hurt, and you heal quickly, and you don't feel pain, but I can add one more layer of defense. Just say the word."
"Our only chance of surviving is to make sure they pay us. Once we have the money and have moved it out of their reach, there is little financial incentive for them to risk the deal. Of course, we'll be incentivising letting us go even more with the dead-man's switch. So, I feel we have the post-pay part of the exchange largely covered. We set the switch, disarm Sam's toy, and get out of Dodge. Doc scans for trackers and we shake any pursuers, but those are details we can hash out later. Getting paid is the trickier part."
"The RV we have requested will take much longer to get from Denver to our campsite than the aircraft part of their force will certainly be using, not to mention the spirits that will almost certainly scout the area slash lead the charge. So, we have to send them to a nearby spot before revealing the location of the artifact. This will give us an opportunity to observe their numbers and possibly their intent, but also it will allow the slow vehicles and the nearly instantaneous spirits to arrive at the meet within a handful of minutes of each other. This means that less time on the bomb clock is wasted waiting for all of our requested items to arrive."
"Once we give them the location of the meet, we can reveal the existence of the explosive device, that way they don't just show up and start shooting. "
"I think we need to be careful about when we do the reveal for the explosive device. We don't want them to show up shooting, sure, but if we tell them too early they might just turn around and bug out without ever bothering to scope out the artifact. If any of us knew there was a huge bomb at a meet, would we go to the meet? We have to remember that this is optional for them. They want it, sure, but the principles of loss aversion are in play here. Namely, the human tendency to strongly prefer avoiding losses to acquiring gains. In this case they're risking two million and change plus a corporate security team. Nobody wants to explain a frag-up involving those levels of resources. I don't think 'oh but we were pursuing a mysterious artifact' will provide them much cover in corporate politics. So keep that rabbit in the hat as long as we can."
"Once everybody is present, we put all of our cards on the table and give them time to examine the artifact. This is perhaps the most dangerous part of this whole endeavor. They will almost certainly try to disable the explosive in order to deny us our leverage, so Doc will have to stay especially frosty." He eyes the cold, crisp winter scene around them pointedly. "And this brings us to the biggest hole in our plan - the dead-man's switch. Who will be the lynch-pin? Do we maybe have two? If it is one of us, where will they stay while the meet happens?"
"Ace and Sam are both effective pretty much at any range. It seems like they should be fire support, since the rest of us can't fill that role as effectively, but maybe close enough to intercede in melee if necessary."
"There's a big part of me that would rather do the hand-off in a city. They're not going to want to cause a ruckus around civilians any more than we do. Last anyone would need is PCC SecForce getting involved, and doing it here is just a little too much like eating where we drek for my taste."
"Little igloos would be very effective sniper blinds, I would think."
<<<@Team [Doc] Well, seems like we found our old personalities! Or rather they found us. That's rather odd. And their timing couldn't be worse. FWIW, I've no interest in giving up this body to the prior owner. Wouldn't mind having a talk with him, find out a little more about the whole "It's all her fault" statement.
That said, we've got 3 people in the van. One rigger and one decker. Don't know if they've figured out that this particular Sat-link is actually me yet or not, but they know I'm out here and will be ready once I attack. I'm not quite impetuous enough to start attacking before everyone decides on course of action.
Possibly a stalling action until DIMR and ASPS shows up and we get ourselves a nice little three way stand-off?>>>
There's more stunned silence. Other-Chino floats forward a bit. He has some feral traits to him that remind Ohanzee of the beast spirits he summons. "Hey, you. Me. B13. Yeah, you. Keeping in shape? Yeah, good. Ironic, neh? Make a living punching spirits only to become a spirit yourself. Real ironic. Anyway, I'm ready for my meat body back. Can't punch drek in the astral. Flying's wiz, I guess, but it's like freerunning with none of the challenge. And I miss the crunch of bone getting kicked, knamean?"
"Yo, Sam, aim that thing at your own hoop, wiz? The shimmery fraggers won't give a fuck-all bout what you're packing."
<<Sam, a grenade!>>
<<<@Team [Doc] Got the drone!>>>
<<@Team [Ace] Bulldog down. Initiate comms with opposing team?>>
Yuri deactivates his chameleon suit and pulls off his helmet, trying to appeal to Chino. Yuri can see the lack of recognition in Chino's eyes. "It's Yuri! You really don't remember! Fraggit!"
"Damn, we're just trying to help!" Dmitri, the rigger who was safe inside a rigger raccoon, insists. "Ohanzee, you and me go way back. Your spirit pops out of nowhere and says you hit a strange snag on your last job, now you need to get your body back. Sure I'm gonna help, 'specially when you - I mean your spirit, whatever - say there's a big payday attached. You'd help you, wouldn't you?"
"Da, a crazy story, but it's all four of you, no?" Yuri adds. "Rozkhi, B13, Ohanzee, even Doc Hack, all the same. Crazy drek but that's the Sixth World, neh? We came here to help, друг."
"I say, yes, I was hired help," Dale admits. "Here to replace 'Doc Hack' I was told. Yes, well, fine cock up that was, haha! Box my ears, I got sent off arse over elbow. Feeling a bit bladdered now, like some rat-arsed nancy boy. Say, you wouldn't happen to have any baccy on you? I'm gagging here and easy about the blend."
<<@Team [Katsina] It's... working! Sam is stable. Trauma patch is reporting that it has successfully averted the internal hemorrhaging.>>
"Ay, wow, you are mean!" María José complains. "¿Amigos vienen? It would be much smarter for you to hire me to hold a gun for you, neh? I don't know you, I don't know them. You let me go, I work! Good rates. A discount, even."
It's quiet at the campsite. Katsina looks around. There are no enemies, as far as her magic can tell. Instead, there's a Winnebago and a fat credstick. "Wiz," she says, tossing a thumbs-up to Ace's hidden position.
"Alright, we've got some prisoners to process. It's about 10 klicks back into town. Current temperature: 2 degrees Celsius. They won't freeze to death. If anyone wants a faster or more permanent solution, that's on you. Personally, I'm feeling... magnanimous.
"Except Rozkhi. Frag that guy. I'm taking him with us for us for, uh, experiments. Someone help me get his sack of guts over to the RV."
<<<@Team [Doc] Race you guys to the border for a pick up and then we can send this RV back to the dealer? I can't believe that worked! Kat, get me more images of the lab! I can't wait to get started in there!>>>
<<@Team [Katsina] The smart play here is to go to ground and lay low for a good long while. If we're taking Cannon's advice, the closest borders are Denver and the Sioux. From Grand Junction we're looking at four hours and three hours, respectively. The UCAS and CAS are about 8 hours away. Nothing says we all have to go the same direction. Let's figure this out.>>
"I don't want to bring him up in here," she says. "I want to carefully orchestrate the scene when he wakes up. I'll need some time with him, alone. I'll debrief him to see what he knows. There may be some, ah, yelling involved."
"Right on!" Chino says with a fist pump. "Can I watch? I ain't never seen anyone eat a spirit!"
"I said alone," Katsina shoots back coldly. It's clear that she's defensive about the matter.
"Hoi,"
"Katsina and I are going to be staying away from the 'plexes for a bit. What say you come with?"