[Sentinemodo]

Code picked up the audio chips. Grabbed a gun and moved after the scouting party.

Meanwhile, he constructed an ad hoc tact net. Namely he was linking everyone subvoc's/commlinks into more or less coherent audio/text network and linked radar output with trid map from the flying drone. Then programmed on the fly a quick routine to autoupdate positions of each team member (and Holland) onto the trid map. Set the map to signal and mark any movement other then the team's. If there is a video feed (like from the commlink hang over the shoulder or Ruckus sensors) it is meshed into as well. Finally the feed is distributed to all team members.

[Crossbow]

Digger, waiting for the new arrivals, stretches his neck to take in all of the new arrival.

"Guess you ain't havin' trouble findin' grub in the zone, huh?"

Trying to get them to crouch down as much as they can out of sight, he jabs a thumb over his shoulder at the scene below.

"Songbird down there is da elf we told Mikey about, he is the mage keeping da kabosh on da bugs.  If you wanna chat him up, feel free, but don't act chummy with him, or even nice.  He said the bugs will read da feelings and come out to fight again, dat's how we lost Ruckus, da poor slot."

Digger then points to the hole the others disappeared into, "Otherwise you got some more climbing to do to link up wit da rest of da crew." 

[Mindset]

"I'm just here for the free juice, man."

Lighting a menthol cigarette, Jack drags a lung full of sweet death.  Pointing around the room with his lighter, he gives the ol' thumbs up and smirks.

"Nice place Mikey picked for us. I love what he's done with the joint. What's all this about famous Elves and Wasp spirits, now, chief? I hear Ares pays hard currency for nest intell....just saying'."

Drag. Exhale. Repeat.

[Xzylvador]

Devoted walked a couple of meters behind his friend, his vision switching to astral every now and then, but only for a short while.
"The astral here, it's like... like... the smoke from the fire you started below, only filling every hallway and every room and flowing towards the place we came from. It's suffocating and blinding and... This is a bad place, Machete."

[Ten-Hex]

Gardener cracks back a toothy yellowed grin, but it's mostly hidden by his helmet. "Ya, this is what growin' up on a steady diet'a Chicago dogs gets ya. I'm Gardener," he says, jamming a knotted, spadelike thumb at his chest. "Jack here has a point. I dunno how many nests you've seen up close an pretty, but you learn to call in Ares' Fairies ta lay down some fun-time barbeque on nests if you want to live long out here."

He shrugs. "Unless youse knows somethin we don't. Mikey's payin me ta be an official hoop-saver, so I'll do that whatever way necessary."

[Crossbow]

"The way that plays out does not seem to involve saving the hoop of the rich elf down there and the financial windfall that follows, or at least us not getting a cut of it.  It also doesn't really help up in our own salvage op if we leave and let Ares blow the place to hell."

[inca1980]

Machete lets go of his shotgun with one hand and reaches behind his back and unsheaths his machete.  'Listen kid, if you see any threat at all, close your sight to the astral world and force that threat to materialize is it wants a piece of us.'

[Mindset]

"Fuck it. Let's get to climbing. Who's this shit-hot long ear, anyway?"

Rolling from his back to his gut, Jack props himself up on his reaction hand and raises to a knee, his rifle in his primary hand and his cigarette dangling dangerously from his lip. Jack checks his kit. He's up.

"Let's get going, Treebeard. I don't want any more of those fuckin' rats finding our scent. I'm with you on this one. We're going with or calling in the big boys?"

Rifle stock to shoulder. Safety off. Round chambered. Morale at an all-time high.

[Ten-Hex]

The treeman makes a noise that sounds like a hybrid between a grunt and a sigh, shuffling over to the dubious-looking hole going upwards. "Looks like we head up for now."

subvoc - "Okay kiddies, if you're making Uncle Gardener climb up inta bugfuckery to cover your butts then you'd better allow him access to your GPS coords. Give him a reason to not have Ares lay down some tiger balm on this buildin's nuts."

He begins to climb some more, not waiting for an answer. Not quite like the usually patient lug, but cram isn't known for keeping people sedate. He does take a brief moment to make sure the gas vent's active on his Ingram in case something nasty comes along during his ascent.

text to Jack - "I see you twitchy. Let's try to keep an exit plan open in case this goes to drek."

[Sentinemodo]

Guys - Code was broadcasting text on the commlinks - I found an audio a record of the first month of infestation of the building by the bug spirits. I am browsin' through it but with that amount of data it'll take some time to find something interesting. But I think that at the least we got some paydata.

[Crossbow]

When Digger clears the hole he finds Codemonkey.

"Should be some bigtime paydata, we should see if we got that spell he cast to set up the thing that keeps the buggies from melting.  Maybe there is something in there we can use to root them outta here without bringing Ares to nuke the joint again."

[Kontact]

Code took the chip with the audio from the attack, as well as a stack of others sitting on the desk, and moved out into the hallway where Machete and Devoted were scouting around, peering into holes.  He headed around the bend into the next room.  There were more stations, more monitors.  One was running.  Taking a moment to look at the controls, it seemed like this was a remote operation center for controlling the lights and automated systems for the set.  Hydraulics and actuators were on the other end of those controls.  All of them were things that code would need to repair his bot, but he had no idea where these controls came out on the other end.  Nothing much to salvage in the room though.  Joysticks don't serve much use outside of retro fashions these days.  The north west room was all screens and microphones.  Probably some sort of control booth for the director.  The machines booted up and the screens showed the set below through multiple angles.  The speakers below started to squawk angrily, and Code cut it off quickly.  The next room was camera control.  Nothing seemed to be running.  Rebooting caused the first couple of machines wouldn't power on.  The third posted, but locked up.  It would take time and effort to get it running.  Rather than digging into the system yet, he took a look around and found another stack of chips. 

[Sentinemodo]

Guys, I've found a video control room. I hope to get a peek into the nest to see if there is anything of worth. Give me a couple of minutes. You could search for wardrobes here, not much in terms of loot, but each simrig is a thousand nuyen worth in hardware, and there possibly could be some raw streams that we could sell.

[Kontact]

Code took the camera control computer, an old tower thing, pulled it out, fiddled with the panels, snapped the locking bolts off with a torque wrench, and dove into its guts.  It looked like the cooling system was fried.  Not too surprising.  The fans weren't rated for over 175000 hours of use.  Code cracked open a few other cases and cannibalized them for parts.  Finally, a half hour later, he managed to make a single working computer station which could turn on and not immediately overheat and die.

[Sentinemodo]

Whistling and buzzing and murmuring to a song (had somebody know he would probably recognize the theme from a  XX century movies trilogy "Star wars"). Code was happy to work on the ancient station. Good he nodded to himself Guys, I don't know what were you up to, but I've finished fixing this beauty.

Now let's see... Code has logged in and browsed through still working cameras.