[Triskavanski]

Well, one bullet was the cost of this mission. Not bad, and seems my luck held together, as nothing went terribly wrong either. he says leaning back, drinking from anither brown glass bottle.

[JackVII]

[ 2318 | Rear of Novelty Hills Sleep & Eat | Redmond Barrens | Seattle ]

Baron Mojo snorted at Cormack's statement, but didn't really see the need to point out that the man had literally done nothing. He had to concede that the overall results were excellent. "Well, that seemed pretty easy. Where to now?"

Feeling that a nap might help his headache, but not entirely trusting the folks around him, Mojo slipped his senses into the Astral. Focusing himself, he  a weak spirit of man whose sole purpose was to watch over him and wake him up if anything untoward happened. Given their surroundings, it wasn't entirely unusual that the spirit took the form of a miniature version of Moto's truck, albeit with a giant rack of KC flood lights along the grill and on top of the roof... all pointed in Cormack's direction at the moment. Summoning the little spirit winded the mage further, but he hoped to get some rest immediately.

[Triskavanski]

John leans in, looking less than pleased at the moment. "It was too easy. Far too easy. No one even shot at us. And yet, the guy was dead. This smells terrible."

[martinchaen]

Moto halted the large Roadnaster before the alley exited out onto the main street for a brief moment, mentally opening the top hatch to allow Alpha-1 and -2 to land into their respective charging stations. He'd chosen to keep Romeo-1 in the air 100m above the vehicle after it had trailed Johnny out of Novelty Hills, and he'd been monitoring the video feed from his eye in the sky as they'd pulled away to make sure they weren't followed. He ran a quick set of diagnostics on the combat drones, verified that the wrapper program was still concealing the highly illegal modifications as simple weather sensor, and loaded three armor piercing rounds into Alpha-1's Crockett EBR before addressing the team directly.

"Easy or not, Johnny was able to get the paydata and we have no sign of pursuit at this moment. Mr. Oxycode could have gotten tangled up with enemies of the Seoulpa, he got have gotten whacked by rival street scum, or he could have perished for countless other reasons; in any case, there is no use speculating as we do not have enough data to compile even a tenuous hypothesis.

As for our destination, am taking alternate return route to Banshee, ETA approximately 56 minutes plus/minus 7 depending on traffic; should be smooth ride. Not to worry, will attempt to refrain from vehicular acrobatics this time.

Suggest Count Zorro investigate link ownership information while en route to destination; Moto will focus on driving and making sure we're not being followed.."

He tried to impart some humour into the line about acrobatics, realizing full well that his burnout at the Banshee had been unnecessary. "Natalie is no boat, though, and nobody insults my vehicles!" The dwarf harrumphed to himself at the thought.

He engaged the armored vehicles powerful engine and rolled slowly out of the alley, turning onto the route that would take them further east to avoid returning through the Bargain Basement neighborhood, choosing instead to cut through the outlying roads of the Plastic Jungle in the north of the Redmon Barrens before heading back south towards Touristville and their destination, deliberately muddying their trail in case anyone was following. Better to not take any chances just in case someone from the Seoulpa rings were watching.

"The Captain is certainly a... unique... individual," Moto thought to himself, "but he's got a point. Three rounds fired, no casualties or wounds among team members, no one caught on camera; good return on investment for team if job is as straightforward as it seems. Time will tell..."

As they hit the less civilized roads of the outer reaches of the Barrens, Moto settled in and enjoyed the ride, taking a few side roads and pausing under a bridge in the middle of nowhere to ensure no one was following them. He reveled in the feeling of tarmac passing underneath his wheels, and in the brisk Seattle air caressing his armored shell as they moved through the night.

[Bewilderbeast]

After Moto reached a comfortable and relatively stable cruising speed, Bad Johnny Juju unbuckled his seat belt and stood up. Crouching low inside the moving vehicle, he crept a few steps forward to dump the commlinks recovered from Oxycode's corpse into the Count's lap. "Find out what you can from these if you want, but as far as I'm concerned the job is done."

Johnny strapped himself back into his seat and breathed a sigh of relief. "The Captain's not wrong. The fact that our target was already dead was definitely a bad sign. But I specifically asked about the make and model of the commlinks and our idiot Johnson said to just bring whatever commlinks he had on him. And that's exactly what we have here." Bad Johnny Juju collapsed the folding stock of his Ceska before slipping it into another fold of his lined coat. "If Mr. Johnson disagrees, he can hire us for another job. But I expect full payment for the delivery of those two comms."

[Triskavanski]

"It might seem like it is done. But in my experience that is always when things go.. sideways." he remarks taking another swig from his bottle.

[Celtibero]

The blue haze and water steam from the sewer manifolds outside the armored vehicle hid mot of the detritus on the alley, the place nearly deserted at this hour. a couple vagrant and homeless prowled the main street and the occasional rumble of a Harley reverberated in the night.

So, mind if i inspect them? said Bobby to Johnny whle the Captain sipped from his bottle.

[martinchaen]

Moto interjected at the Count's question.

"Suggest proceeding carefully, Count Zorro; if the Seoulpa is willing to pay 40,000¥ for a single link, Kami knows what's on it. Might want to jam the airwaves just in case someone is tracking either of these devices; whoever killed Oxycode left them behind, but that doesn't mean we're in the clear."

While en route to the Banshee, Moto considered how long it had been since he'd changed the ID and plates on the Roadmaster. He hadn't really been able to afford the equipment to do so on the fly, but between Valkyrie's commission for the Ferrari job and the upcoming pay day, he could swing both the gear and rent for the next month. He decided to inquire about the availability of said items with Valkyrie.

//Send message to Valkyrie
//"Valkyrie, am looking for some equipment; how soon can you get me a high-end area jammer, a set of morphing license plates, and spoof chips for an Ares Roadmaster? Standard rates; no rush."

He then looked up some reference material on the vehicle modifications, feeling fairly confident that he knew how to install them. The jammer would have to go on the Roadmaster as well, just in case. He considered getting a mini-sized jammer for Romeo-1 too, but discarded the idea as it would be a little too cumbersome.

[Bewilderbeast]

Bad Johnny Juju shrugged his slender shoulders, looking uneasy. "I'm sure the guy that hired us won't like it, but it could help to know what we're about to walk into. It's your call, Count."

[Celtibero]

It's your call guys, should we take a peak or just go for the pay day... ? Bobby looked intently into the commlinks, with them shutdown they where safe but not knowing what was inside, or even if it was what they where searching for, made it a big unknown.

[martinchaen]

Moto knew that disgression was the better part of valor. He knew that the team had been hired to retrieve the commlink, nothing more. But his curiosity got the better of him; what had made him a great researcher and engineer also made him somewhat of a liability in the shadows.

He couldn't help himself, pure and simple.

"Think we should take a look; if nothing else, we can confirm ownership information, perhaps figure out which link belongs to Oxycode, unless both are his. Suggest blasting some interference with your deck to block Matrix access in order to prevent tracking; not like anyone will care out here in the Barrens. Power each device on separately and take a careful look at each. Moto will assist."

The dwarf was eager with excitement, wondering what secrets the links could potentially hold.

[JackVII]

[ 2325 | Moto's RoadMaster | Redmond Barrens | Seattle ]

The Baron snoozes as his spirit watches on intently, headlamp beams on high as it looks around the interior of the vehicle.

[Triskavanski]

"Well, it might be a bomb." John replies shrugging. He looked around and towards the resting Barron, and finally sighed, taking a long swig of his drink before slipping his face mask back on. Something wasn't right. The job was too easy. Things didn't add up.

[Celtibero]

Ok then, lets get the show on the road.... Looking at both commljnks Bobby turn on each in turn, the Sony emperor and the Hermes Ikon. His body going limp the effects on the matrix evident as the airwaves become entangled with noise, opening his a few seconds later, the effect still ongoing, but duly compensated by Moto's ability to reduce the noise around him.

So, you see anything useful? Booby asked Moto.

It is evident, to Moto that both the commlinks have no databombs in them, both contain a list of contacts, 28 for the Sony and 18 for the Hermes. The contacts are however encrypted and their data is out of your reach or abilities, unless of course you wished to hack into the host of the anonymization app developer in order to try and sort out the relevant encryption key for these commlinks.

The Hermes last matrix action was 8h ago, a text message to the Sony commcode. the Sony commcode last action was a file transfer to another contact 9h ago. The latest file edits seem not to be relevant though, a music file deletion and a contact addition, for the Sony and Hermes respectively.

Looking carefully Moto notices that there is something odd with the Hermes, absorbed by the details he keeps digging, finally discovering that it has a hidden second device built into the it, its not milspec but it certainly is not your run of the mill hardware upgrade.

[ 0025 | Moto's RoadMaster | Redmond Barrens | Seattle ]

[martinchaen]

With the RCC configured to use all available processing power for noise reduction, Moto cut through the static cloud emitted by Zorro's deck and saw that the two icons had powered up. As he kept driving towards Touristville, he proceeded to carefully inspect the two devices they had acquired. Finally, he opened a voice communications channel to his team.

"Links are not particularly well protected, though this is to be expected for someone like Oxycode. No databombs, no file protection, though data on both devices, contact lists of some sort, seem to be scrambled by an anonymizer protocol. Not impossible to crack, but unlikely to be achievable without hacking anonymizer host to obtain one-time pad used."

Moto inspected the security log of each device, noticing that the two had been in contact recently.

"A message was sent to the Sony Emperor from the Hermes Ikon earlier tonight. Speculation: unless Oxycode was a paranoid schizophrenic he'd be unlikely to send message to himself."

Out of the corner of his digital eye, he noticed what looked like another device within the Hermes iconography for a brief moment.

"Huh, curious. I wonder..." he muttered to himself, inspecting the Hermes ikon more closely. "Looks like there is a secondary device inside of Hermes Ikon; highly unusual, very unlike someone like Oxycode." He took a closer look at the marks on all three devices in an attempt to determine who they were registered to.

"Might be able to figure out who the devices belong to; Zorro, power off devices and drop jamming. About to enter Touristville," he told the others while he kept one eye on the road and one eye on the devices, then cross-referenced the commcodes and ownership marks on the Matrix.

The search finished just as he pulled up to the curb in an alley behind the Banshee, and Moto quickly reviewed the results before presenting his findings to the team.