[FastJack]

Mercedes' addled thoughts return to the image that she found in the kid's book. Suddenly a light bulb goes off and she scans the image into her commlink, running a search on it through her comp and sending a copy out to her contacts to see if any of them have seen ever seen anything like it.

[inca1980]

@Mercedes:  
[OOC: let's see who's available:  Your Fixer Diego 1d6=2, Mr. Grey 1d6=2, Tiff 1d6=1, Joey 1d6=6, Laesa contact 1d6=3.  They're all available except Tiff.]

Mr. Grey txts you back that he has never seen that kind of symbol before and wouldn't even know where to begin looking for someone who might know.  

Diego txts you back after about 2 minutes saying he can run a matrix search but he's going to have to charge you his normal finders fee if he finds something and you want to buy the info....he would love to be of more help but he needs to make a living.  

[OOC: Charisma 8+Loyalty 3 + Ettiquette 4 + Improved Ability 2=17  17d6.hits(5)=7]

Your Laesa contact Mathis calls you back that he has no idea what it is and the best he can do is put the image out and let you know if something comes up.  Mathis is your mother's cousin's son-in-law and you ask him if he could actually shoot the image to any princes down in Tarislar so that it looks important.  He agrees and sends blessings in sperethiel to you and your mother saying he'll txt back in an hour and let you know how it's coming along.

The last person you always call is Joey.  You feel kind of stupid calling the bartender in the middle of the day asking some obscure question like this one, but once in a while Joey knows more about a given subject than a high-level fixer and for all you know Laesa might not turn anything up.....for a job paying 25,000 nuyen you decide that waking the arogant bastard up is definitely worth-it.  He answers his commlink tired and visibly annoyed when he sees it's you.  Bartending at Underworld 93 means that you're the hippest elf that ever graced the sixth world...at least that's the idea twenty-something club hopper groupies reinforce in your mind night after night.  That's why when a fine classy elf-chick like Mercedes comes along and doesn't even give you the time of day except to show-up when you least expect it to ask some crazy question, you take it almost as an insult.  After getting rebuffed enough times, lust turns to frustration, then frustration turns to hate....and then hate subsides into just general acceptance of the situation and you just begrudgingly keep the door open cuz maybe, just maybe, all the info you've given her will one day materialize in the form of getting a little play.  

[OOC: Recollection test for Joey: Logic 2 + Will 3 = 5  5d6.hits(5)=1....so he remembers where he saw it....but is cloudy on the details of different possible leads]
 
Joey: "Man, I was sleeping.....hold on a second, let me open the image.....<<chuckles>> ....I shouldn't say anything because now you'll keep on calling me about random shit....but that symbol actually looks vaguely familiar...let's see here....I saw that symbol...I think it was a different color, but it was like 2 years ago....We were cleaning up some of the RFID and nano ARO advertising tags that people tend to stick or spray all over the place....you know those pesky little micro-nodes people will drop around that shoot up ARO spam to advertise other clubs, trendy synthahol drinks,sex, drugs...anything.  Well U93 gets a lot of them and every few months we sweep'em up once the pop-up spam gets too intense for people's filters.  Well I remember I was wiping down the ladies bathroom for spam and there was one little tiny ARO, couldn't have been bigger than a condom wrapper, was just hanging there in the air in one of the stalls with this symbol you're showing me right here on it.  I kept on wiping the stalls but it just wasn't coming off so I decided to leave it since it wasn't even trying to override my spam filters.  It stayed there for a few weeks and I would have just forgotten about it otherwise, but I remember one night a girl came in ....this was like 2 years ago so bear with me...and she showed me a drawing like yours and asked me if i'd seen that symbol anywhere in the club...and I told her something along the lines of "I could show her if she didn't tell her mommy and daddy".....jesus i must have been high as a kite.  So I took her to the stall and showed her...and of course then we got it on right there on the toilet seat.  After that night I don't think I ever saw her again, but the funny thing was, I also never saw that little ARO or the symbol on it ever again either."

He looks at something else in his field of view and then tells you he's got another call.....you can read him like a book though, he doesn't have a call, he's just trying to look like he's in demand.

[FastJack]

"Thanks, Joey. Next drink's on me." Mercedes also texts back to Diego that she has some "discretionary funds" right now, so if he can get some info, she may be able to get him some nuyen.

[Kontact]

Thinking on the scene Mercedes relayed from her conversation with Joey, B.B. couldn't help but come to the conclusion that it sounded like some kind of game.  "So it's a marker?  Some kind of one-time marker for a map... a path?  a pickup spot?  what?  Shoot me that picture, Woof.  I'll see what I can dig up in the digital underground before we hit the spot." 


[OOC:  Rolling up a Data Search with the picture, based on the new lead we just got.  I'm going to roll up the full dice block and then trim it down to diminishing.  I'll post the hits both with and without the original "Obscure" judgment, just in case the new info helps narrow the search a bit.  Anyway, full DP is 6 browse + 3 nanites +1 skill + 1 PuSHeD = 11 DP  BIG BLOCK OF ROLLS

11d6.hits(5) → [6,3,5,3,3,1,3,1,2,1,6] = (3) [2]
10d6.hits(5) → [4,3,6,3,1,1,5,4,2,1] = (2) [2]
9d6.hits(5) → [2,6,3,3,2,4,4,2,3] = (1) [1] (public)
8d6.hits(5) → [4,1,2,3,5,4,2,1] = (1) [1] [public]
7d6.hits(5) → [2,5,6,6,4,4,2] = (3) [3]
6d6.hits(5) → [3,5,5,1,4,2] = (2) [2] (limited interest)
5d6.hits(5) → [5,2,4,4,1] = (1) [1] [limited interest]
4d6.hits(5) → [1,2,1,6] = (1) [-] (Glitch) [Critical Glitch - aborted]
3d6.hits(5) → [3,5,4] = (1) [-] [aborted]
2d6.hits(5) → [2,3] = (-)
1d6.hits(5) → [3] = (-) (game over)

Yeah.  That was pretty obviously a waste of time.  Forgot my Analytics bonus, but it certainly wouldn't have mattered with rolls like those.

[Walks Through Walls]

( O.O.C. I am spending an edge point. No way in the world I want that breeder getting his hands on me)

I draw my taser and fire at the troll.

(O.O.C. taser skill of 9d6 don't see any modifiers 9d6: Rolled on: 2010-09-25 02:27:23.372949
9d6 → [2,3,5,5,6,1,2,5,2] = (31) 4 successes)

(Sams dodge: Rolled on: 2010-09-25 02:29:43.192949
4d6 → [1,3,6,2] = (12) 1 success)

(O.O.C. It looks like I hit him with the taser so I'll let you make his body roll and then the electricity resistance roll since I don't know what armor or other modifiers there might be for his resistance checks)

(Whew I might make it through this guys)

[inca1980]

@Cynthia:
You see Sam reach between his legs and try to grab you but you lunge a few feet back pull out your Yamaha Pulsar, aim straight at his head visible between his legs. 

[OOC: He's wearing boxers and a wife beater and only has 1/1 armor for being a troll with calcified skin.  You damage total is 6+3 nethits=9s(e) and is resisted with half impact armor (rounded up), so he resists with Body 8 + Half-impact armor 1=9 9d6.hits(5)=2.  So he takes 7s damage, and then must resist getting knocked unconscious: Body 8 + Willpower 3=11 (threshold 3)  11d6.hits(5)=4.  He resists, but he is disoriented with -2 to all actions for 5 combat turns.  He also has a -3 stun wound modifier for a total modifier of -5 to all actions.] 

With a little thud you see the electrode dart imbed itself in his forehead and he screams out as you see little arcs of electricity course out over his skin. 

You notice as you backstep into the living-room that a human girl screams, balls herself up and cowers on a couch on the other side of the room.  The troll whips around and looks quite dazed, but quickly focuses back on you, opens up his hands and you see the sudden glisten of thin chrome-colored blades pop out of his finger-tips as he swings at you in a rather clumsily.

[OOC: Troll takes a swing at you: Agi 2 + Blades 3 + Reach 1 + Wound/Disorientation-5 = 1 1d6.hits(5)=1.  You don't have dodge or close-range combat skills, so reaction dicepool is just Reaction 3 3d6.hits(5)=1 .]
You barely duck as the swipe goes right over your head and scratches the wall.

[OOC: Combat Turn 2, 
Sam's initiative attribute is now 7-5=2. 1d6.hits(5)=1...so that would be an Init. score of 3.

Cynthia's initiative attribute is 7 1d6.hits(5)=1, so her total init score is 8.   You go first]

@B.B.
You scour the matrix looking for the image and even though your search comes-up fruitless, when you cross-reference some of the ideas like games, maps, Underworld 93 with the approximate date of two years ago, you do find a sappy trid clip of an investigative report linked on a Horizon news site which seems to have elements which could be related to Joey's story.  Your Browse program summarizes the report as follows:

<<Title: When Piracy turns Perilous.>>
 <<Summary: shockumentary aired April 3rd, 2071.  1 hour special with back to back overly dramatic reenactments of "real world" cases of dangers inherent in using pirated software.  Bob Mercador age 14 went into catatonic shock and died when his parents tried to save money by providing him with an illegally purchased textbook which was fitted with lethal bio-feedback code.  Yukiko Kurosawa, nurse age 32 brutally murdered a patient due to pirated skillsofts she had accidentally received from the hospital she worked at.  Amanda Keeler age 20 disappeared on November 3rd, 2070 last seen in the deadly Puyallup barrens at the famous Underworld 93 by a clubgoer.  Her parents found she was playing pirated VR games and although any evidence of the content of the games was never re-cooperated, interviews with her sister revealed that her pirated VR games did not merely limit themselves to cyber-space but often intersected and instructed the player to visit and interact with real world places and people.  This is a regulated practice under International Safety in Broadcasting and Entertainment Act, a.k.a. Corporate Court Protocol 13992423, but pirated software would not adhere to these important regulations.  Perry Masor, Occult investigator for KE age 42 was physically deformed for life when a tampered-with pirated hermetic software caused him to journey  to an incorrect meta-planar destination during what he calls an "inner quest."  Upon his return he awoke, and whatever he saw on his "journey" provoked him to walk to his kitchen and then proceed to gouge out his eyes with a knife.  The whole segment ends with the slogan "Piracy, it's not just against the law, it's wrong....dead wrong!  When you see piracy, report it!">>

[Walks Through Walls]

I fire a second shot Sam the troll.

Rolled on: 2010-09-26 07:21:51.065422
9d6 → [3,6,6,3,1,6,4,5,5] = (39)  5 hits 11S e

( O.O.C. After his modifiers to his reaction for wound and disorientation he doesn't have any dice to avoid so go right to resistance test 9 dice)
Rolled on: 2010-09-26 07:23:57.375422
9d6 → [4,4,6,5,6,2,5,6,1] = (39) 5 hits so he takes 6 stun which will knock him unconscious.

I will then hop over the body and close the door to the apartment. "Stop yelling Lana and everything will be fine." (O.O.C. will use my leadership or con skill to try and convince her to stop yelling.)

Rolled on: 2010-09-26 07:28:46.705422
6d6 → [2,1,6,2,2,1] = (14) 2 hits

[inca1980]

@B.B.:
The only pictures in the documentary are scenes shot with re-enactment actors.  When you run any of the names through KE databases none of them check out at all...it seems the documentary used all fake names so you don't know how many of the stories were true and how many of them were inspired by true events.  Any blogs you see discussing the documentary simply speculate but don't present any concrete evidence.  When you run "Underworld 93" and your other new search parameters through KE databases you don't find anything related.  It's common practice for news shows to simply make things up....but often times real world events and/or rumors inspire many of the "fake" stories.

[inca1980]

@Cynthia:
After you duck under his swipe at you, you roll over the arm of the unoccupied couch where the orks were sitting watching the trid and whip around unloading another round from your Pulsar.  You see the dart land right in the trolls left pectoral muscle and he spasms for almost a whole second before you see his eyes roll up into the back of his head and he slumps over with a big thump right before the table with his submachine gun laying on it. 

[OOC: leadership opposed test: Willpower 2 + Default -1 =1 so you succeed]

The human woman looks up at you with mascara streaming down her eyes and her cries for help have dwindled to only a few small whimpers. 

Lana: "Please don't kill me..." 

[Walks Through Walls]

I check the front door to make sure it is securely closed and locked. "Sit down and calm down. Do everything I tell you and you will live."

I'll take out a set of the plastic restraints and restrain the troll. If I think it is possible I am going to loop a line of the monwire around his wrists also so if he tries to break the restraints he will slice up his wrists in doing so.

"Guys, Good news and bad news. Bad news is I didn't quite get into the apartment undetected. good news is I subdued the troll and Lana seems to be uninterested in fighting. Bad news I don't really have anything that will definitely restrain the troll when he comes around. I think I have him taken care of for now, but please get here as soon as possible." subvocalizing on my mike.

Turn to Lana and give her my full attention. Is she wearing a comlink or do I see one nearby? "I have some friends that will be here in a minute. I don't want to do anything to hurt you, but I can't guarantee they will feel the same way. Help me out and you will walk away you have my word on that." (again using leadership skill and intimidation (I did just drop the troll) to convince her)

"Can you see AR pictures?"

If she replies she can I'll beam her a picture of the two boys. "Have you seen these kids before?"
 

[Kontact]

B.B. had been restraining himself all through this last data search, and the results showed.  Mercedes getting snippy and using magic on him for no good reason had pissed him off considerably.  This was supposed to be fun!  If you're going to get shot in the face for running around messing with gangsters, you ought to try and make a good time of it!  But, despite his half-hearted effort, some part of his brain, (most likely the artificial part which glowed and pulsed like a tiny sun inside his skull,) was still committed to the task at hand, and that part came up with a good piece of paydata.

"Alright guys, I think I've got something here.  I found an old news story involving Underworld 93 and a girl who disappeared 2 years ago while playing an AR-based hacker game - which had led her there.  Don't have a real name, so I can't say that there's anything linking this story with our boy, the symbol, or Joey's mystery girl.  Only shared attribute is teenage kids screwing around with twisted chips and then wandering off, presumed dead.  I'll run the story past my software contact when I talk to him next.  I've still got to see about getting that Sniffer program to check the feed off these chips."

<<B.B.@Chew Magna Sundries - Jimmy.  B.B.  Need to talk biz.  2783491728342953873923.  Any time.>>

[inca1980]

Time for everyone: 3:29 PM
@Cynthia
You realize that part of Lana's fear might be stemming from the fact that you still look like a glass statue, so you disengage the ruthenium polymer, raise the visor and pull off the hooded mask of your chameleon suit, your long flowing chestnut hair tumbling down your shoulders as your form turns from translucent to black.  Lana visibly relaxes and regains much of her composure as she sees that you're not some spirit of the occult or another such strange being.

When she doesn't even seem to register the fact that you threw up an AR photo of the boys, you assume she doesn't have any AR contact lenses much less a datajack with a sim-module.  You look at the trid player and see that it's modern enough so you throw the icon of the image over to the player, a flat-screen hologram emanates from the trid clearly displaying both of the boys.  She looks at the image of the boys and then turns toward you, the expression on her face weighing the options she has before her.  After looking over at the slumped over troll with his hands bound behind his back and a sizable stain of drool forming on the carpet around his mouth, she looks at you and says:

Lana: "Ya i've seen those boys once or twice around here, but I swear, they're not here anymore.  Last time was maybe 2 weeks ago or so, I don't got anything to do with them lady!"  

@Everyone in car:
You slow down your vehicle once the grid guide shows you that you're 2 blocks away from the address.  

@B.B.: Jimmy txts you back: "What can I help you with B?"


   
   
   

[Sludig]

Woofer subvocalizes to Walks: <<We're two blocks out.>>

[FastJack]

Mercedes looks around as they're pulling up. Does it look like there may be anyone that would give them trouble in this neighborhood?

Perception Check (-1 for Deepweed crash) (5d6.hits(5)=1)
Judge Intentions check for anyone that stands out from Perception check (-1 for Deepweed crash) (11d6.hits(5)=6)

[inca1980]

@Mercedes
Right now the rain started up again and you don't see anyone threatening standing outside, just a few huddled homeless figures trying to stay dry and seem totally oblivious to your presence.