@Mercedes, BB & Walks:
Responding to BB, "The hull is tight as a faraday cage. You can take that ridiculous thing off."
The human woman nods slightly and watches as the team finds its place among a row of aircraft seats along the wall and buckles up. She holsters the gun and finds her own seat and buckles up as well not too far away and facing you. The shrouded figure which saved your life (you can only hope the catch in mid air has "saved" your life) continues to stand in place, with its arms crossed, a faint blueish glow emanating from gaps between the mummy like wrappings which cover anything not covered by his fedora or his clothing. The sudden acceleration of the VTOL vessel does not even make him twitch to regain balance.
Through the window you see the Seattle skyline become more and more like a panorama as you appear to be traveling eastward and ascending in altitude at quite some velocity. Once you reach an altitude of what could be 4-5 km some mechanism in the hull of the vessel is activated and you hear the moving of hydraulics which also causes your hostess to speak for the first time in 10 minutes.
"We're just changing gears to make a suborbital jump to get us where we need to go faster."
You hear the blaring of rocket thrusters and the sky begins to lose a lot of its blueish tinge and fades to black. As soon as you feel that the vessel is cruising you see Karina unbuckle and stand up.
"If you'll excuse me I need to use the ladies room for a moment."
She couldn't have been gone longer than 1 min. before she comes back completely changed into a very stylish Zoé business suit, her skirt ironed to perfection. A single EVO logo embroidered into the lapel.
"Please feel free to get up and stretch. Would anyone care for a refreshment?"
She hits an AR pad and little cube slides out of the wall and transforms into a small spider-like crawler drone which skittles over to a series of panels which slide open exposing a wide and exotic selection of alcoholic beverages.
"I myself am going to need a drink right about now....anyone also care for a blue atlantis? I can assure you, no actual faeries were harmed in the distillation process."
As soon as the nimble little drone mixes her drink, it deftly skitters over the ceiling and delivers it to her. She looks over to the shrouded figure and nods. It takes off its fedora and bandaging which seems to serve as a makeshift mask and as it is unraveled the face beneath is exposed to be that of a normal hairless human male except the man glows a deep aqua blue. He then removes his trench-coat, adjusts his tie and takes a seat next to your hostess who looks back at you.
"As I mentioned before, my name is Karina Von Helsing and this is my assistant, the free spirit known simply as Z. We represent a division of the EVO corporation that is highly interested in your teams unique set of knowledge and skills. We have been observing your team for a few months now and I apologize for the rather odd and stressful circumstances for our encounter but as you well know we cannot be seen as meddling in the affairs of Knight Errant. One of our informants on the inside alerted us moments before the assault and we arrived as soon as we could. Fortunately for you they sent in the big guns and up until about 15 minutes ago strikes of that nature were almost assuredly led by the Lieutenant Tyrone Yancy who has a penchant for going it alone just to prove to himself and others that he can. Ares apparently bought his swagger and I'm sure they don't see it this way, but the truth is you probably did them a favor by dropping the lieutenant out the window, albeit simultaneously complicating your legal status quite a bit."
Karina takes another sip from her drink and smiles rather wryly at BB.
"The research and development division I lead is known as HMHVVMS, or Infected Main-streaming. We specialize in the biological, cultural and sociological aspects of assimilating the infected into society. Through our research, EVO's vision is to create a society where the infected no longer need to hide in the shadows or live in fear. We believe a two-pronged strategy of public relations marketing aimed at wage-slave joe, coupled with a solid line of products and services which incentive-ize the infected to come out of the coffin and main-stream to be our most effective path towards this vision."
She halts for a moment to sip her drink a little more.
"However, I do not want to patronize individuals such as yourselves who are in the line of work in which you are in. Such neat and tidy visions work great in boardrooms full of investors and fancy PR sims. As you well know the reality is quite a bit dirtier. In order to keep such inspiring and lofty hopes so clean, we need to scrub it clean, and that's the line of work in which I am in. The vast majority of metahumans infected with HMHVV are not any more of a danger to the population than half the crazies already running around Seattle. When provided with Evo-alternative methods to satisfy their essence and dietary needs, they function just as any other member of society. But all it takes is one massacre, the draining of one high-level corporate exec. to flush all our PR down the toilet. One bad apple spoils the bunch so to speak. My division shoots bad apples and blows them to pieces. Some infected just need to be put down and it's as simple as that."
She brings up a few AR displays of fotos and flow-charts.
"This may not come as a surprise to you; and your colleague who is currently in KE custody probably could also tell you this quite confidently from that feeling in his gut but has so far either refused to or is in complete denial of.....the vampire you destroyed over 6 months ago, Olivier Sanon, is in fact not destroyed. On the contrary, his power has only grown. Ever since the disappearance of Mandy Kensington from Underworld 93 three years ago, we have been searching for Mr. Sanon with no success. Unlike our investigators, somehow your team was able to find him and we need you to find him again.
With input from Evo diviners, statistical models of the future have placed a 18.8% probability that Mr. Sanon's future actions will bring our Main-streaming program to a grinding halt and cost us billions of nuyen. Simultaneously being arguably one of the greatest deckers who ever lived and having magical abilities which have only grown, he is a threat which cannot be ignored. Given the legal predicament you are in due to your former employer at Visteon, and also dropping a KE officer several stories to his death, you are not in much of a position to bargain. Nonetheless, what you know and what you can do is valuable to us and we believe that talent should be well compensated. We are prepared to offer you 100,000 ¥ each along with the rectifying of your legal status in UCAS and other treatie corporations and nations. We also are well aware that in order to find Mr. Sanon again, your colleague Marcus Steele is integral and necessary and before we do anything we must extricate him from his current status as a KE detainee. We are prepared to aid you in this extrication. Do you accept this offer? If you accept, then my assistant Z will brief you on the important....details"
