[Xzylvador]

"I'm with you."
Devoted checked the air levels of his suit and then fell into step a couple of meters behind.

[Crossbow]

"Wait a sec, who the frag is simslot chattin' up on our nuyen?"

[Sentinemodo]

I guess it's Holland. This fragging' elf must have cracked the commlink, I've rigged it to be safe, guess I have the botch hattrick coming up.
Want me to turn it off or just listen put it on loudspeaker?

Let's move up anyway, unless you want to talk with the guy. I've have had enough talking for this era.

Code jacked in for a couple of seconds to hack in the fly.

[Crossbow]

"No, we need to talk to him, I ain't gettin' my hoop kicked for a bottle or two and then run into the wrong end of an extraction on the way out.  Apparently he is feeling talkative, mebbe he can talk to us.  Can you put us thru Code?  And block his other call."

[Sentinemodo]

Code, disconnected the external matrix link and connected the call to his own comlink.

Hello Holland, anything new on the 85th?

After that he turned the link microphone toward anyone willing to talk.

[Kontact]

<<Oh, hello!  You've called!  I wasn't sure how this thing worked at first.  No screen and all.  Couldn't make any calls or anything, so I had to jigger with it.  But no worries!  I've already started the process of getting things in order!  You never told me that CATCo went belly up.  It complicates things.  I'll have to do a little work tracking down my bank accounts if I'm going to pay you for your efforts.  Ducks must be put into rows.  All of that.>>

[Xzylvador]

"Before you do any more 'getting things in order', you are aware that if anyone finds out that there's bugs here, they could earn a lot of money just by telling Ares this location and that this building and everything inside it will then be blown into very small pieces?"

[Kontact]

<<Ho!  Is that the young magic lad?  Hi there magic lad!  Yes.  I had considered that.  I remember this one time they dropped an atomic bomb on the bugs a few miles north of here.  It's been some time, but that's not the sort of thing one forgets.  You know, things like that, or the time that they sprayed the whole city with poison and magic-eating bacteria.  So, suffice it to say, I am not advertising my situation.>>

[Crossbow]

The dwarf shakes his head, that mage would have a life expectancy of seconds in meeting with The Boss.

"Sir, this here is Digger.  We are not sure exactly what, if anything, you need from us to help wit things.  Hell, we weren't even sure how far to get to try and use the comm safely.  We have had some troubles ourselves since we left you, for an abandoned building, this place has a lot of residents, ya know what I'm sayin'?

I just think it would be smart to co-ordinate efforts, what say you Mr Holland?"

[Kontact]

<<Sounds fine.  Excellent really.  I am working at quite a knowledge deficit here.  You were not all that forthcoming with information earlier.  Understandable.  Not much time to talk when you're covered in bees.  Suffice it to say, I've put some feelers out and they've not been too successful at bringing back information.  It seems time has moved on without me for twenty years.  You didn't tell me it had been twenty years.  Or did you?  Regardless, my personnel and resources are not where I left them, for the most part, so joint efforts sound quite good right now.  Do any of you know of, perhaps, researchers who might be interested in bug spirits?  I've got these things pretty well contained.  If we could find an interested party, it wouldn't be too difficult to nuke them from the astral with a confusion spell while I keep them locked in with a mana barrier and...>>

The line goes quiet for a moment.

<<Wait.  What other residents?>>

[Crossbow]

"What other residents?  Well, there are the bees of course, the Gargoyle that Ruckus capped on the way up, the ghost that the kid says is the one that burned out the whole middle of the tower, all of this fraggin' automated security that we have been blowing to hell every few meters up here and somekinda computer watchamajig that Codemonkey was just dancing with in the Matrix.  If that enough there are a lobby fulla squatters downstairs.

I dunno what kinda guys Devoted pals around with, but there ain't many spellslingers in The Family.  The ones I have heard of ain't much the studious type, capisce?  There's a lot of folks around that like to kill bugs tho, it's kinda Chicago's thing now, like deep dish pizza use ta be."

[Xzylvador]

Devoted's listened with amazement and puzzlement to Holland's rambling but his expression and demeanor suddenly changed when the mage mentioned bug spirit research. He didn't know much about bug spirits, but he didn't have to.
"Keeping bug spirits contained and finding researchers willing to pay for them?! Are you completely out of your mind? Do you know... you DO know what these things do! You saw it! You must have felt it, all those years, what they are... they're evil. Pure evil. And you want to SELL them to do research on? Those things have to be killed first chance anyone gets. Nothing else.", he shouted angrily into the microphone.
"If he thinks anything else, they've gotten into his head and I don't think there's any hope for him... I didn't think anyone could have fended those things off for two decades... maybe he didn't."

[Kontact]

<<Gary's ghost is still here after the fire?  That's mad!  He was one of the special effects guys. Very Buddhist.  Very.  Must be his dharma to stay here and swat stray bugs.  He died setting the main hive on fire.  Wiped out the whole thing, or at least most of it.  The rest moved up here.  Wow.  Gary...  And squatters who don't even know..>>
About then came Devoted's outburst.
<<Uhhhh... Boy, the very fact that you think I could even communicate with these things means that you know nothing about them.  The fact that you know know nothing about them means that perhaps you would benefit from studying them.  Do you see the irony in this?>>

[Crossbow]

"Look, Mr Holland, we might be able to find the guys you need thru Mike, remember Mike?  Once we get done here we can figger that part out, but we still gotta finish the salvage run for the wine up here.  You haven't got any codes that might get us thru the security up here, do ya?  Or sumthin' else that could help us?"

[Kontact]

<<The building security was all based on badges.  Each badge had a magnetic signature and was cleared for certain areas of access.  Don't know what happened to mine.  ...I might have eaten it at one point.  Oh.  Well... That brings up a host of really bad memories..>>

The trid feed seems to swing a little and then apparently ends up on the sofa, looking outward on the empty area near the stairs where the crew stood.  You can still sort of hear Holland muttering, but the 100 yen link isn't able to pick it up with any clarity.