[HydroRaven]

With an annoyed expression, Clementine quickly interjected "So what now?" The ork quickly composed herself though, and her face turned expressionless. Whether it was the frustration of not knowing their next move or the mental exhaustion of their recent defeat that brought the burst of emotion, even she couldn't tell. With a composed expression, she calmly asked "Where do we go from here?"

[farothel]

"I would say we need more intel," Sammy said, "we need to know more about the virus and the 'undesirable' tag and we also need to know who those guys where who attacked us.  That might lead us to the why.  Oh, and we need to know what to do with him there."
The last was said while pointing to Bacchus.

[HydroRaven]

With a quick glance at what Sammy was pointing at, Clementine simply answered "I vote the nearest gutter."

[Mercy Merchant]

Snow remains quiet when the subject of Bacchus comes up; she has already given her vote earlier and reiterating it might not be wise at this point.  She does say, "Our friends here are already working on the virus.  We can let them reset most of our comms and see what happens next.  My reset might be trickier, but I do not know."  Here, she turns to look at Crenshaw.  "What do you think?  Can you do the resets and what about mine as it is implanted?"

[Crossbow]

Crenshaw glances at them in the oversized passenger mirror.  "The reset itself is not a problem, but an effective scrubbing of the hardware and reload of the software will require it to be offline for a full day, same goes for the implanted link, and they will all have to be down, or they could just get reinfected by the infected links. We haven't been able to observe an infection event, but the host device definitely needs to be in mutual sensor range for a reasonable amount of time.  The infection isn't widespread, but it seems to be capable of spreading quickly in a social environment. Tommy's and mine have been affected, but we are still at low levels, mine is just giving me social cues and Tommy is getting exercise advice, and we don't mind the help."

Noting a passing sign, he slows down and asks the back, "We are getting back to civilization, Escondido is the next exit, if we want to drop the banger at a hospital or a truck stop, this might be the chance."

[Thvor]

"Hospital," Sam called back. At the look on Con's face, he explained to the gunman, "A lot of people already know we were looking for him. Not to mention that he knows who did the deed. Taking him to the meds may help stave off difficulties later."

[Mercy Merchant]

Snow gives Sam a gleaming smile and nods.  "Thank you, Sam.  I would prefer a hospital as well."  She turns to look at Clem, "So, can we be off the matrix for a day?  Our primary systems are pretty far gone."

[farothel]

"Do we have a choice," Sammy asked, "Let's first dump the punk over there, get back to the studio and then see.  Maybe we can buy a couple of burners, put a seperate ID on them and don't go near the Pito system for a day while our primary systems are cleaned up."

While Sammy wasn't a hacker, she was well briefed by her agent on matrix safety when she just started out and unlike many stars, she had actually heeded these warnings.  It also helped that she worked a lot behind the scenes before becoming an actress.

[Mercy Merchant]

Snow nods and calls up to Crenshaw, "So, it looks like we want to get the 'links fixed.  Can we get started right away after we get back or do you need some more time to get set  up?  I don't want you getting in trouble with your bosses over this, so we can go to someone and get permission for you to work on our equipment if you think it is necessary.  And what do you need to do to me, specifically, since mine is implanted?"

[Necrogigas]

O'Connor was in agreement with Clem about Bacchus. Snow had seen to it that he'd live, so he could crawl to a hospital on his own. The others seemed dead set on the hospital though, and he didn't argue it. He turned to Sammy, "The techs seem to have the virus thing in hand. How soon could you start to search for the mage?"

[farothel]

"Theoretically now," Sammy said, "in practice I would like to have a good night sleep to get rid of my headache before I try it.  That mage is not just an amateur.  It might even be better to wait a bit until he relaxes his guard before we go after him."

[HydroRaven]

"We don't have the luxury of waiting for him to relax his guard" interjected Clem. "As weak as it is, this is the only lead we have."

[Crossbow]

Before Sammy has to explain the vagaries of magical tracking to two folks whose only experience with the subject is reruns of “Jack Spectre, Occult Detective,” and as Crenshaw takes the exit into the small coastal town, his hacker buddy comes around.  Assessing the situation, he asks “Oh, did one of you guys spot the tags too?  I thought you all had shut down your links, well I will go ahead and confirm what you might be thinking, from some of the area feeds I tapped into, I think it is your ambushers.  I saw one of the guys with the tag removing a case for what could be a sniper rifle from his car, and there are weird little drones operating in the area.”

[Mercy Merchant]

A startled Snow looks up at the hacker, her face red in embarrassment.  "Tags, Tommy?  No, I did not pick up any tags.  Another failure.  I cannot trust my 'link because of the virus.  Can you show us where the tags are so I can disable them?  And where is the sniper located?"

[HydroRaven]

At the same time as Snow reacted, Clem asked "Can you tell us where this person is?", her head perking up and looking at Crenshaw's friend, her face and tone expressionless.