[Mercy Merchant]

Snow jumps her attention to the equipment that Clem is showing her.  She does a quick scan to see if it is operating.  <It appears to be a signal device of some sort.  Are there wires or cables connecting it to any of the rooms?  It could be a bait and sting op.  I was used in several of those to set up potential blackmail targets.  You know, cute girl gets man or woman to room for sex or conversation that can be recorded to be used later.  Very common.  Could be your friend got caught by accident or on purpose in room with wrong man.>  She notes the similarity to a satellite uplink and finds its node on the matrix.  <Boss.  Got the node.  Do you want me to try to access it and see what it is doing?  I can also try to simply intercept the message it is sending out and decrypt it.  There may be safeguards on the device if it is sophisticated enough.>

[Necrogigas]

O'Connor drew his machine pistol, with his free hand, the moment he spotted the second body. He moved to the foot of the bed and aimed at both sleeping occupants. For funsies, he set his machine pistol to full-auto. O'Connor took a moment to examine the two poor souls they were about to chat with.

[spoiler=Perception]
Intuition 3 + Perception 3 + Visual 2 = Pool 8
8d6t5 5
[/spoiler]

[farothel]

"It's probably what Snow said," Sammy replied, "a set-up for blackmail.  And if it's not about sex, sometimes you can use what's in the conversation to your own ends.  The only thing that bothers me is the location and the cost of this set-up.  Most people who come here, a couple of exceptions notwithstanding, are not important enough to blackmail.  Which reminds me.  Snow, if you go into that node, see if it has a copy of the recordings.  And don't have to bother tracing it, it goes through a satelite, probably a high orbit one.  I have a similar, although smaller device, for when we were filming out in the boonies."

[Mercy Merchant]

Snow nods in the car.  <Good point about the uplink, Sammy.  I might still try, just in case it is just a local transmitter and not to a satellite.  I also agree with your concern about the set up here.  It could be that other important people are lured here as a place for "completely anonymous sex"  only to find that is not the case.  An alternative is that someone is just a voyeur and likes watching.  Perhaps Bacchus uses the footage for his new show about life in the sprawl and just got lucky when your friend stumbled into his web.  In any case, I am going to try to access the node.  This is likely to use my attention for a bit so I will leave our encryption protection running in the background, but will not be monitoring it closely, so watch what you say.>  She pulls her attention back and focuses on the task to hack the node.

Hack System  Hack Information Feed: 7d6t5 2

Edge to reroll failures.  Edge to reroll failures: 5d6t5 3

[Mercy Merchant]

Snow is stumped by the device.  It does not seem to conform to what she had expected and she gets a bit frustrated before she realizes that the transmitter is not a hidden wireless node.  It appears, in fact, to be not connected to the matrix at all.  Looking again at the images Sammy had sent her, she also notes something that she should have caught.  *Some hacker I am.  My teachers would be ashamed.  I definitely need more practice.*  Mentally thumbing the comm net, she says, <The device does not appear to be a matrix node, hidden or otherwise.  This is something set up to run automatically without wireless controls.  My guess is that it is not a satellite uplink at all, but is transmitting line of sight to a receiver.  Can you look down its direction and see anything that it might be aimed at?  Someone went to a lot of trouble to make this operation off the matrix, probably to fool anyone coming here into thinking they were secure from prying eyes.  I would think that most suspicious people would be looking for wireless nodes, just as I was.>

[HydroRaven]

"So this thing needs a direct line of sight?" asks Clementine after reading Snow's message. She starts to look around, trying to find something that would look like it connects to the device.

Perception 〜 Intuition 4 + Perception 3 + Perceptive 1 + Reception Enhancer 2 + Vision Enhancement 3 + Actively Looking 3: 16d6t5 4 no glitches

[Thvor]

Sam was letting Con take the lead; this type of "social interaction" was much more his line of work, after all. Stepping up to the side of the bed, he raised his walking stick and glanced at Con with a "shall I wake him for you" expression.

[Crossbow]

On the roof, Clementine checks the sighting mechanism on the device and tries to see a receiver. Dishes on roofs are fairly commonplace in this age, but she narrows down the possibilities down to what looks like a strip bar about 4 blocks away.

In the manager's apartment, O'Connor notes the occupants are a pair middle-aged humans ( a mail and a female) who like they had been rode hard ( or perhaps rode each other hard ) and put away wet. Several bottles of synthahol at varying levels of contents, and the wrappers of many street drugs littering the floor.

[Necrogigas]

O'Connor finished observing the couple, *Well, at least someone got to party and get laid tonight.* He doubted that anyone would respond to gunshots in this area, but better to play things safe. He moved to the opposite side of the bed and gently placed his machine pistol against the woman's temple. He nodded to Sam to clunk the guy over the head.

[HydroRaven]

*This goat is really starting to get on my nerves* thought Clementine as she spotted what she thought was the receiver a few blocks away. She pointed to the strip in the distance, asking Sammy "Would that look like the receiving end?" The ork sent a message to the team, saying <I think I spotted the receiver a couple of blocks away. Con, Torley, squeeze the manager, we'll go and investigate the receiver> as she was making her way down the rooftop with Sammy, the sporadic lighting in the crisp night guiding her movements. Once down from the roof, she headed back to the vehicle where Snow was waiting, checking her commlink as if this simple gesture would somehow reassure her they had plenty of time left before their deadline.

[Thvor]

Sam understood Con's gesture, but he didn't think they'd be able to get good information from someone with head trauma. So, instead, he brought his stick down solidly across the man's chest. Holding the startled man down with the end of his cane, he smiled beatifically. "Good morning, sir. I'm afraid my associate and I just need a moment of your time."

He nodded towards Con, watching in satisfaction as the man's wide eyes followed.

[Mercy Merchant]

Snow stops monitoring the sleaze motel, feeling that Sam and Con can get out on their own, and takes a minute to look at the feed from the bar camera to see if anything of interest is going on in there.  Beyond that, she waits for Clem and Sammy to get to the car so they can go to the next site.

[farothel]

"Let me first check things out in the astral," Sammy said when they were back at the car, "just as a precaution."
She got into the car and left her body again, flying over to the other building and checking for patrolling mages, spirits and wards.  She also checked any background count if it was present.  She'd rather not walk in a toxic domain if she could avoid it.



astral perception:
sammy:6D6E5  → 3( 5; 4; 4; 4; 5; 6;=> 3 successes against 5 )#astral perception

[Mercy Merchant]

While Sammy is out scanning the astral, Snow says to Clem, "Which building are we looking for?  I can start a scan for nodes."

Scan for open nodes:  Scan for open nodes: 7d6t5 1

[Necrogigas]

O'Connor grinned wolfishly as understanding mixed with fear in the man's eyes. The man's startled thrashings awoke the woman. She turned to see what was pressed against her head. When she realized what it was, she opened wide to scream. O'Connor shoved his machine pistol into her mouth to muffle her cries. He leveled his pistol at the man's face, "There are two things you need know before you answer our questions. First, My partner will know if your lying. Second, she'll pay for it if you do. Now, start talking about room 8."

[spoiler=Intimidation]
Charisma 2 + Intimidation 1 + Pistol 2 = Pool 5
Intimidation: 5d6t5 2
[/spoiler]