[MaxKojote]

"No further questions sir. Thank you for your consideration. Please have a nice evening." Fang said his polite goodbyes. As soon as Mitchell had ended the call, he examined the information briefly. Then he got into a comfortable position on his bed, slipped into VR, and began contacting the LTG number provided to him.

Upon answer: "Hello. My name is Fang, and I will be your matrix support for this task. Mr Johnson contacted me and assigned me to you."

[fourclover]

He finishes his sofkaf, crushing the cup in his hand, and turns to the food dispenser. He snorts with some distaste at the American/Italian options and chooses American.

"Welcome to the team, Fang." Addressing the whole group, he says "The big question is where do we start. There are 2 sites marked, and no guarantees on either. Which one do we hit first?"

[avpbott]

"shall we split up or do one at a time and be cautious?

[RHat]

"Name's Iris, but if you need a codename or something I guess Aziyan will do.  I'm an investigator, so I think  the fact that they've brought me on and given us two weeks should make it clear they don't mean for us to just go running in blind."

[avpbott]

"Ron Cervantes pistol expert and gunsmith.  Ex military but dont worry about that im done with that part of my life."  "If ya need a weapon fixed or enhanced, or if ya just need something dead im your man."    "Don't know about you guys but id like to get ourselves introduced and get this show on the road, the more we stand here the more i get the feeling our job will get harder." Ron didn't know what to make of this group, since his days in the military he had only done 2 shadow ops and they had been solo where he though it was good to have backup he still didn't know how to feel about these runners.  He noticed a little bit of muscle magic and tec in the group so he relaxed a little knowing that  the group had a good wide variety of skills.  After ron introduced himself he went over to lean against the nearest wall of the warehouse and started twirling one of his ares warhawk pistols in a fancy gunslinger fashion.   

Roll perception outside the warehouse door {3 hits}   

[Marlowe]

Ron - Perception

You continue to see a quiet night on the edge of the abandoned airstrip.

[Windmill Hunter]

Gray rolled his eyes,'With teammates like these, who needs security' "I'm Gray, and as for what I did, well I think I'll wait until Ms Naivette here has got a bit of shadow on her before I tell, I've far too many people after me to be chatty. I won't say don't go looking" He adressed the commlink to the table."I know better than that,but be ready to have a lot of angry people wanted to have a chat with you, and even if you're like the last hacker who went for a gander, and just a torso in a bunker under siberia, I'd recommend changing the locks at least.
So in sum we have a girl scout, an ex-squaddie with a pistol fetish, a half-cow baseballer, a man who has had his frontal lobes replaced with a library, and a voice on a commlink. All we need now is a harmless old man with more blood on his hands than some corperations and it's the punchline of a bad joke, Oh. " He looked down at himself for a second, thin bloodless lips momnetarily forming a smile before he snapped back and put his head in his hands, sighing."Well I didn't come back to this in the hope of a long life, lets get this over and done with."

[Nobody]

I waited as the group eased into conversation to guide them along to the point. I spoke simultaneously over the comlink and the mindnet. I also visualized and shared the images of the areas over the mindnet as a map.

"Glad to hear we've got the Matrix covered, Fang. Ron's right, we should get down to business. I'd suggest we first conduct reconnaissance on both sites remotely. I can send spirits to search for the image of the seal, and I'd suggest others do the same. In the meantime we can use our relative specialties to assess which is currently the harder target. That way, if we don't get a lead from the spirits' efforts, we can prioritize which area we search in force. Fang, can you find us anything on other bunkers like this one that have been found, and by whom. And what can you do about setting us up some secure channels for long range communication? We're currently supplementing with magic, but without you here I can't include you."

[RHat]

Iris fixed Gray with a deadpan stare for the naivete comment, before responding on the Mindlink.

"First, I don't appreciate it when people lie to me to conceal vital information - especially information that could keep people from getting killed.  I know, for a flat and indisputable fact that he was lying, which leads me to my second point; I felt we needed to know why, and frankly wanted to see how the rest of you would react.  The fact that he was annoyed at being called out rather than angry or worried when he found out I knew suggests that he's not concealing it out of malice; he doesn't actually care that I know he's lying.  Add to that the other evidence, it starts looking an awful lot like this whole thing is a test."  She tossed her cigarette to the concrete floor.  There was more to why she asked what she did how she did, of course, but calling her naive was like calling the sea dry; she was a little surprised the self-styled Face hadn't read her intentions a bit better.

"Third, if I'm gonna get jerked around like that, I don't much care if anyone complains when I swing back a bit.  In any case, I think you're all looking at the wrong approach here - it's not like it's impossible to figure out which site is going to be the right one before we move on it; we should focus on the right target rather than the soft one.  And you should know full well, Invictus, that there's no spirit that's much going to like being tasked to investigate these sites; the astral around there is liable to be badly corrupted, after all, and that's assuming there've been no efforts made to bar astral access."

[Windmill Hunter]

" Well first girl, confronting your Johnson is the best way I've ever heard of for getting him to take his 25,000 nuyen apeice and walking, and funnily enough, I enjoy not living on the street. This is Seattle, finding some other runners isn't exactly hard here is it? And if you do feel it's a test, try not to pick the option which could lead to us getting blacklisted, smartmouthed runners end up unemployable very quickly and as much as I would like your share, us being sans an investigator is going to get us killed a lot more quickly than some dodgy info.
He met Isis's stare with his own for a second before breaking away and looking up at the ceiling.
 Secondly, he's a Johnson, the good ones always lie, and the best way out of it is to nod, smile, and go in prepared for anything up to and including an insect spirit hive. Now this looks remarkably convinient that there might be records of this bunker here in Seattle, given that this site would be top secret and pre-Crash 1.0 it'll be both hardcopy and if it exists anywhere west of Washington it'll be in either a safe or a vault depending on how strict those bean-counters decided to be on secuity. So I hope one of you knows a little B&E or we may as well just guess on this, so while we think this over I think I'll give my friend in Washington a call, just in case"
Gray reached into his suit and turned his commlink back on, old habits having made him turn it off before he approached the hanger. Images flashed across his glasses as his PAN fired back up, he retrived the list of sleeper agents in UCAS from a dark crevice in his mind, managed through blind luck to get his encryption program running and made a call to a Dr James Miller, history lecturer at Washington University.

//Hello Danny Boy, time for a trip to the archives,
 we're looking for an old storm drain dug by great-uncle sam,
 try the old FEMA stacks, call if you require more details.
yours, Torque
the traditonal sum will be deposited in the Zurich account//

Rolls

remembering Agents 8d6(5)-5 hits
Loading Encryption Program 3d6(5)-1 hit
Persuading Contact to assist-9d6(5)-4 hits

[Nobody]

"We don't need the spirits to do the reconnaissance for us. I intend to instruct mine to find the seal whose image we were provided, and that's all. If there are significant astral defenses, then that's another datapoint in our favor. If there are strong permanent defenses up that have had the sort of astral effect one would expect from decades of existence, that's as useful as finding the seal itself. An astral presence as well as any drones we have on tap will help us confirm the site, and if the spirits come up lacking then we still have data to work with. Are there any other indirect, low-risk methods of observation we have at our disposal?"

[MaxKojote]

"I can provide encrypted long-range communication that will make it highly difficult for a hacker to read our communication.  However it would still be less powerful in security to a magical method of communication." A quiet laugh. "If my lack of presence is an issue with that, there's nothing stopping me from joining the team at a physical location. Just give me a time and location."

Fang left that in the air, before addressing the next point of the unknown voice. "I'll do a bit of research into other found bunkers now."

Data Search on bunkers similar to the mentioned one, and who found them:  Data Search (4) + Analytical Mind (2) + HotSim (2) + Browse (6) (14d6.hits(5)=5) (forgot this probably qualified as specialised, so make that 4 hits)
Data Search (4) + Analytical Mind (2) + HotSim (2) + Browse (6) (14d6.hits(5)=8) (total 13 [12 if specialised], public and private thresholds  reached after 2 minutes)
Data Search (4) + Analytical Mind (2) + HotSim (2) + Browse (6) - Specialised (1) (13d6.hits(5)=2) (total 14)
Data Search (4) + Analytical Mind (2) + HotSim (2) + Browse (6) - Specialised (1) (13d6.hits(5)=4) (total 16)
Data Search (4) + Analytical Mind (2) + HotSim (2) + Browse (6) - Specialised (1) (13d6.hits(5)=3) (total 19)
Data Search (4) + Analytical Mind (2) + HotSim (2) + Browse (6) - Specialised (1) (13d6.hits(5)=5) (total 24, hidden/actively hunted and erased threshold reached after 6 minutes)

Not sure how you're handling  limiting extended tests, if at  all. I'm assuming the Missions method of a number of dice rolls equal to the dice pool. If you plan to use the cumulative  penalty, let me know and I'll modify the post. I'll likely be doing Data Search a fair bit, so let me know if you want me to do things differently.

[Marlowe]

Gray

\\Nice to speak with you after such a long time too, Torque.  What kind of records are you looking for?  Press releases, funds appropriations, disaster plans?  And are we talking pre '79 CDA , or post '79 FEMA?

MaxKojote

GM Note -The missions method works fine for extended rolls.  I'd count this as obscure instead of specialized - secret installations that actually exist as opposed to paranoid ramblings by conspiracy theorists like Plan9.

You don't find any credible reports of FEMA bunkers themselves, mostly you find thousands of articles about hidden dragon lairs, old missile silos being used as spirit lodges by the NAN governments and other oddball requests.

There are a few reports of government facilities being found over the years since the U.S. government disbanded but none in the Seattle area.  You are able to confirm that the Redmond City Hall Department of Records does keep an archive of building records on hardcopy for pre-Crash projects for any contractors or corporations that engage in new construction projects in Redmond.  You get the sense that it's not the busiest of government departments however.

You also see reports of vintage weapons showing up in large numbers in the slums of other cities in the CAS or UCAS over the last 3 years, as well as some speculation that the sudden influx of weapons is tied into discovery of old US stockpiles.  There's also some reports you remain skeptical of that old US weapons are being funneled to the Yucatan rebels in Aztlan.

[Nobody]

"Fang, someone can meet you at the ferry dock nearby and bring you to us. Look for the minotaur." I made eye contact with Bullpen and sent him a feeling of certainty in his ability, confirming that he'd take on the task. "Before you ask, that's not code for anything. I mean an actual minotaur. How soon can you make it?"

The plan seemed to be falling into place, and the team seemed competent at first glance. Luck counted for a lot in the shadows, though.

[MaxKojote]

"Bainbridge Island dock? I should be able to arrive there in about half an hour or so. I should also be able to maintain communications during travel as well. " He got up off the bed, sliding out of AR as he continued communicating mentally, gathering his gear and directing his drone to the SUV. He really didn't want to go to Bainbridge, but was aware that Encryption had limits. If at all possible, magical communication was still superior. As soon as he was set up in the SUV, he ordered the autopilot to take him to the docks through normal means, and sank back in VR to continue his research and communications.