[farothel]

She was sitting in a corner booth in the Lunch Garden when JJ arrived.  When they had both ordered, he went to business.
  "What do you need, Panther," he asked.
"I need to get some gear to LA without passing through security," she said, "some of mine and some of my teammates.  and one of my teammates.  He might have some issues getting past security."
"That should be possible, my dear," JJ said, "you know our prices.  I'm willing to give you a slight discount, but I have expenses."
"Of course," Panther said, "we leave tomorrow.  I'll get you the stuff and the teammate tonight."
"We are using a different site now," he said, "here's the address."
"OK, I'll be there," Panther said.  they chatted a bit longer as they didn't see each other all that much anymore now Panther was not part of the group anymore, but rather quickly he had to go to another customer.  Panther sent a message to the others who wanted to use the smuggler to get some stuff in LA to meet her at the address JJ had given her, before going home to pack what she would take on the plane.  After that she cleaned the commlinks she took from everything that could point to the previous owners or that could activate and tell anybody this was a stolen commlink, before checking the news.

The following day she arrived at the airport well in time.  She had only brought her taser with her and that was packed in the checked in luggage.  The rest would arrive later that day with JJ.  While waiting in the airport or on the plane if people were late, she did a discreet check on the team's commlinks.  Not hacking in or anything, just a quick check of model.  The rest of the time on the plane she spent on editing the Q&A with Pandora into something that actually looked quite professional.  She also used a couple of shots she had gotten from her Dragonfly and some shots from the filming, but not the combat.

As she had managed to get a window seat, she could look outside while landing in LA.  It didn't look all that good in certain part, but then again, neither did Seattle.  At least here it was sunny, she thought as she put on some shades.  She had opted for casual clothing for the plane trip, viewing she could always change should it become necessary.  When Desperado - she had to keep from laughing at the name, but that was Hollywood for you - gave the keys, she let someone else drive.  She was better with airplanes than with cars actually.  When they were on their way to the hotel, she installed the P2.0.  She knew it was something special here in LA and she had even already seen PITO feeds posted elsewhere.  She immediately sent an connection invite to Pandora and added the Q&A she had done with the actress on the blogging part of the system.  Now she just needed to add the rest of the group for starters and then she could get her network starting.

In the hotel she quickly put her stuff away, putting some of her clothing just so that she would know if someone had touched it.  She had taken the forest canopy room as it added nicely to her nick and in fact the VR environmnent she had programmed for prowling the matrix.


OOC: assuming we're connected to Fermin as he's the one giving us the invites.  The only thing I know about the system is what's in Corporate Enclaves.

OOC2: the matrix check is just a matrix perception on everybody's commlink values (the four device values: firewall, response, system and signal, and the rating of your analyse program).  I'll buy the hits necessary as I can take my time (it's one action per roll and I have a couple of hours).  It's not hacking, just looking.

OOC3: I give one of the two commlinks I've taken from those idiots in Seattle to the person with the lowest commlink values.  If there are two people with very low commlink values, I give that person my secondary commlink and I keep the one taken as my secondary (it is better if I recall correctly, otherwise I keep my own and give the second commlink away).  We can write it out or just assume I've given it with a small lecture on commlink safety (and a demonstration on how quickly someone can get in if necessary).  If I have to give my own commlink, I first transfer my programs to my new commlink (they can do the same with their programs, except for the analyse program which is already loaded).

[Xzylvador]

High up in the air, Rafa looked at the empty seats at either side of him. Two of the runners that had been at the Space Needle hadn't shown up for the flight. How on earth they'd chickened out on such easy money was beyond him but he didn't care much, less dead weight he'd need to carry around and more arm space in these crappy seats, didn't seem like a bad deal. He did wonder for a moment what that mage had done with the guy he'd taken out, but probably best not to know what he'd do with the victims he turned into little furry animals... the world was full of weirdo's.
 
He sat back in his seat and closed his eyes, listening to the sound of the engines and breathing the second-hand air that'd been trapped inside. Airplanes, how Rafa hated these things. It wasn't that he was afraid of flying or anything like that, he just hated the feeling of helplessness they triggered in him. Anywhere else, no matter how wrong things went, at least you had a fighting chance to survive. But here, sitting in a metal tube which was built by whoever could build them the cheapest and was currently soaring through the skies at sub-orbital altitude, his life was in the hands of a bunch of corpses and an autopilot program written by other corpses. If things went wrong, he'd fall for a couple of minutes and then die. Period.
He needed to chat or something, anything to turn his thoughts around.

"So, think we'll get the pay for those two that ditched too?", he asked to noone in particular. "And you're sure that smuggler friend of yours hasn't run off with my things, right?", Rafa asked Panther.

[Caramelle]

Freya gets her voice message:
"Sorry the delay, but i have a lot to do here, so i will make it short.
Fermin - nothing really new, you can trust him, as long as he does not sees you as danger to his stars he will be on your side.
Slade - the thing i was unable to get on the fly is his Shadow-activities for Horizon. Seems he has been on many runs for us  before he retired, now our only connection is trough the props he is providing Big Ben. I would say he is safe as well, but in this I can not be certain. that's all I could get without getting the Crop security alerted.
Hope to see you in LA, but no promises, hun."

Hi, Phil! Thanks for info! I still have to pack few things and tomorrow we're leaving Seattle for a while. Well, I hope to see you soon! And by the way, could you arrange a car for me in LA? Not for working purposes, but one I could use privately... That would be really sweet of you!

[Xzylvador]

"Pito, huh? Heard about that, supposed to be damned hard to get invited to. Sure, sign me up. Working for Charisma Associates and having saved that pretty star should get me a pretty nice starting score, no?"
From what he understood of it, P2.0 sounded like a complete waste of time, just another meaningless something invented to give wageslaves the illusion that they were anything more than cattle to the cooperations. Something worthless giving the illusion of value to lives that had none... it was brilliant.
He didn't care much about it, but it seemed to open some doors in this city, while not having it turned you into some kind of social pariah. He imagined the two women on his team would just be thrilled with this invitation, dreaming of achieving the best ratings, being at the center of attention in a giant social network, living like a princess... but he thought differently. They'd just be two more pretty faces in a city that was full of them, each one more fake than the next.
He, on the other hand, didn't give a damn. He'd be cool. Ice --cking cold. A real life anti-social ass-kicking member of a network consisting soley of fake social corpses whose idea of violence was sending someone a 'thumbs down' icon. Yeah, he might be noticed. In this city of fame and glamour, trying to stand out seemed to be the best way to blend in.

[farothel]

"So, think we'll get the pay for those two that ditched too?", he asked to noone in particular. "And you're sure that smuggler friend of yours hasn't run off with my things, right?", Rafa asked Panther.

"Don't worry," Panther said, "I used to belong to that smuggler group and I left friendly.  He's not going to betray me.  He's a friend and he also knows that I know more about his operation than he can afford to.  Besides, Caretaker is on that plane as well."

[farothel]

Near the evening, after everybody had checked into the hotel, Panther sent a message to everybody that any who wanted to go with her to get their equipment should be in the lobby in ten minutes, so they could be at the meeting site on time.

[Kouryuu]

Getting P2.0 adds a new icon to your commlink’s AR, consisting of three concentric colored rings, each one with a numeric value inside. The numbers represent how popular you are
and how connected you are down here in California. The center ring shows how close you are to Horizon CEO Gary Cline, the next ring is for Membership, or how many people are on your personal network, and the outer ring represents your Subscription, which is the percentage of viewers.

“You’re probably asking yourself right now what these rings are all about,” says a recording of a man decked out like a parody of a movie agent, complete with shades and antiquated cell phone, that came with the P2.0 app. “Through each ring you can see in more detail what the value is made up of. And here,” the agent directs you inside the P2.0 network, “this gray stick figure, which you can personalize, represents you in reference to the rest of the network. Trifling, no? Well, fear not, there’s a placeholder for blogging and me-feeds, allowing me to manage links to other blogs and videos that reference you or your P2.0 ID. And what are viewers? They’re  the rest of the network who want to watch your P2.0 channel (me-feed and blog). I also handle the compiling of multiple videos on the P2.0 network to make for a more contiguous video feed. It keeps people from changing channels too often.”

The other slightly annoying factor with the P2.0 application is the pushy broadcast the P2.0 agent wants to execute from your commlink to talk to every other commlink or drone. You finally mute the agent after hearing it say, for the fifth time today, “Here’s my card, let’s do lunch.”

[Caramelle]

Freya loved flying and airplanes. She loved it with no reason and as long as she remembered herself. Probably that was just that perfect feeling of butterflies in her stomach when the plane took off and landed. She didn’t care, just enjoyed the feeling. She preferred window seats, but actually it didn’t matter – the important thing was to be on plane and move fast.

During the flight Freya wondered, where those two wierdies were, did they really freak out or just had no need for really good money. Anyway, she needed some money – costs of her home were quite high, she was in debt and in the end – she just loved good living. And that costs a lot. She wondered, what kind of car will she have for private use in LA… She was sure, Phil would have arranged it for her, he just couldn’t say no. Hopefully it will be with a driver. Freya could drive herself, but it wasn’t her favorite thing to do.

Later on when they arrived in LA and collected their checked luggage, she enjoyed the sun. When Desperado turned up, she had to keep herself calm – what the hell is it with such an amount of trolls in showbiz??? Aren’t there other species at all??? Where only I look – there are trolls!!! Awful! Thank's to all the saints, he gave them a car - she wouldn't want to have a ride with him! The car given to them seemed to be just fine and the hotel as well. Rooms were nice – she has chosen the one with the theme of mountain meadows and lakes. It reminded her some summer holidays in Europe when she was a child.

Hmmm, P2.0 might get handy, Freya thought, and that is sooooo stylish! But the agent will be muted right away - he's too annoying... Anyway, I have to explore it's possibilities a bit more. Probably Panther might give some tips? I'll have to ask her later. I'm in LA and that's fantastic!!!

[farothel]

Panther let Rafa drive to the location of the meet.  He was the better driver of the group, although she knew her way around cars.  But she had other things to do, like organising her P2.0.  It was a bit annoying that this thing would run on her commlink and would do things she didn't know about, but that was not to be helped in this environment.  She did shut down the broadcast thing though and next she changed the persona icon she would be using.  Normally she had a black panther which in VR looked almost like the real thing.  For this network she planned on using a cartoon version of the same, lightly based on a character from an old book and animated series which was re-run and quite popular at the moment: Jungle Book.

With the icon in place, she started to have a look on the network, sending connect invites to all people she knew on the network.  Next she started looking around on the network for something interesting, while keeping an eye out on the viewers of her Q&A session with Pandora.  Next time she saw Pandora she would ask if she could post her footage of the attack as well.  That might boost her rating even higher.

Arriving at the agreed upon meeting place, she saw that JJ and Caretaker were already there.  None of the crew were immediately visible, but Panther knew they were there.
"Any problems," she asked when they had gotten out of the car.
"Smooth trip in," JJ said, "No hassles, just the way I like it.  Here's your gear and your lost son."
Panther had a chuckle with that.  She sent over the remainder of the money, or at least her part of it and took the case to put in the car.
"Had a good flight," she asked Caretaker.  She knew that terrain hugging flying could be rough on passengers not used to such, but that was a small price to pay for a one-way trip into Lone Star's penal system.

[Kouryuu]

The Studio

The afternoon sun shines brightly here, even through the pollution haze. Heading east over to Studio City, you see many large (up to four-story), white, windowless buildings, each broadcasting the trids that were filmed there. They contrast with the more colorful condos and office complexes in the area. Each of these buildings is a large studio complex, where the stage can blend virtual and real elements into a fantastic trideo. At least that’s what the P2.0 agent tells you.

You drive past several gated private roads and drone sentries before the car stops and tells you that you have arrived at your destination. Before you is a large, gilded security fence with a pair of bored-looking security guards sitting in a guard shack. Beyond that, another large windowless building prominently displays a sign saying “Studio 8.”

The guards request your credentials and verify that you are supposed to be there before opening the gates. You then drive into the large parking lot below the sign. As you exit the car, a dozen iBall drones descend near you. Your links and P2.0 accounts are bombarded by queries. Before you decide whether or not you should go for your gun, they determine you are not newsworthy and leave. One gives an electronic snort of distaste as it goes.

Walking into Studio 8, you are amazed by what is going on inside. It’s like an arcology, but with miniature mountains, oceans, and towns ... anything that the director wants can be built inside. The film stage alone looks to be 350 meters long.

The techie with Ben, James, recognizes you and comes over.

“Hi guys. I had Mr. Desperado put Mr. Slade’s equipment in storage room 8A, over to your left. I’ll show you the room.” He heads off past what appears to be a green-colored, irregularly shaped wall.

“Over to the right of the stage are the meeting rooms, catering, restrooms, workshops, etc.,” he says, pointing to the one- and two-story buildings nested inside the studio. “When the red light ARO is on in any of the rooms, it means that we’re filming and everyone needs to be quiet. And here’s storage room 8A.”

He fumbles a bit with a hefty set of maglock passkeys around his neck and gives you one. “Here’s the key. When Ben wants some piece of equipment, I’ll come and find you.” With that, he heads back to the stage, busy with something on his ‘link.

The storage room is about as big as or bigger than your apartment. It’s twenty by ten meters, with a six-meter-tall shelving unit and attached rolling ladder. Slade’s cases fit neatly on the bottom corner of the shelving unit. Nothing appears to be missing.

Room 8A

The walls have signal-dampening material inside and the door has a hefty maglock on it. The room has its own temperature and humidity controls and those are available from VR in a barebones node.

Inventory of Slade’s Cases

1.    2057 Red Samurai Armor w/ Katana (Suit 1)
2.    2057 Red Samurai Armor w/ Katana (Suit 2)
3.    2057 Red Samurai Armor w/ Katana (Suit 3)
4.    2057 Red Samurai Armor w/ Katana (Suit 4)
5.    2 macuahuitls and an obsidian knife
6.    Thunderstruck Gauss Rifle
7.    4 sets of 6 shuriken
8.    A riot shield with the Red Samurai logo

As the filming is due to start in an hour and you have free time on your hands after doing your security checks, you decide to get to know the people around you - who do you speak to?, do you do extra security checks?

[Caramelle]

The day was lovely – Freya loved sun shining even though the place was polluted... That’s life nowadays.  One can’t change it. She had been in Horizon studios once some time ago with Phil. But now the place seemed to her even larger. Maybe it was all the same, but the image was very impressive. Especially everything created inside of the studio. It’s amazing what can be done with some knowledge and technologies, but most important – imagination.

Freya along with the others looked around the storage room 8A and especially the stuff they were supposed to be guarding – nothing appeared to be missing. Good news! As they have now some free time, Freya decides to talk to people around and get acquainted with the place and it’s specifics. As the technician James hasn’t gone far, she picks him as the first one for some small talk. Later on Freya’ll talk to Big Ben as well – he’s the boss here, so that would be appropriate.

[farothel]

On the way to the studio, Panther asked to stop by an electronics store.  She had decided to guard the armours even more closely, but also electronically.  So she bought some RFID tags.  Normal ones, but also stealth and security tags.  They weren't all that expensive.

At the studio she put the tags on the inside of the armours, making sure that all armours had at least one of each.  Now if a suit of armour decided to make a walk, she could track it.  Her commlink was set to alert her as soon as the armours would go out of the room.  She also informed the team of her actions.  Next it was time to socialise, to talk to the studio people.  She also kept an eye out for Pandora, hoping she would show up today as well.  For the rest she spend a lot of time with the technicians, being interested in technical stuff.


OOC: I'll adapt my character sheet later when I'm home, but 20 each of normal, stealth and security tags isn't that expensive and perfectly legal to have, so it should be possible to buy them

[Xzylvador]

[if possible]
When they step out of the car at the studio and the iBall drones start swarming them, Rafa reaches for one of the annoying little things with a lightning quick move, snatches it before it can evade him and turns its little camera to face him. "Drek you lookin' at, huh? Pinche idiota got nuttin' better to do? When I's got sumetin' cool I wanna share with you pendejo's, I'll put it up myself.", he says to it before carelessly tossing it back on the ground.
Yeah, that's enough advertisement for my Pito feeds for today. Will have to make sure to put a link to this in my profile too when these idiots post it on theirs... probably haven't ever seen anyone with real balls in this fake movie town in years, I'll be the highlight of their f--ing week.
[/pointless interlude]

In the storage room, Rafa is stunned when he sees the Gauss Rifle. "Puta madre... that ain't a real one is it? Damn, this guy can skip my payment if he'll let me borrow this thing for a couple of hours. Hey, Pantera, 'fore you add more tags to those things, see what they've got on 'em already, make sure it's all clean. Stuff's been out of our sight for some time, who knows who got close to 'em in the mean time.
Think you can program that maglock to send us text and pictures whenever someone opens the door? I've got an awesome camera, could hide it somewhere here and aim it at the door, no?
And could you guys check with that techie who else's got access to this place and what they're storing here. For all I know there's another 'runner team already hiding in some of these boxes... that would be fun as hell. Think they'll mind if I check? Haven't beaten anyone up in days!"
Socializing with corpses wasn't really part of Rafa's plans, he figured the girls could do that while he stayed close to the gear.

Assuming there's a lot more stuff in the storage room than just our boxes. 200m² with 6m high shelves... Damned, this sounds like a fun place for Rafa to climb around and jump from shelf to shelf, sounds like he knows what to do to kill time

[Kouryuu]

Freya gets her voice message:
"Sorry the delay, but i have a lot to do here, so i will make it short.
Fermin - nothing really new, you can trust him, as long as he does not sees you as danger to his stars he will be on your side.
Slade - the thing i was unable to get on the fly is his Shadow-activities for Horizon. Seems he has been on many runs for us  before he retired, now our only connection is trough the props he is providing Big Ben. I would say he is safe as well, but in this I can not be certain. that's all I could get without getting the Crop security alerted.
Hope to see you in LA, but no promises, hun."

Hi, Phil! Thanks for info! I still have to pack few things and tomorrow we're leaving Seattle for a while. Well, I hope to see you soon! And by the way, could you arrange a car for me in LA? Not for working purposes, but one I could use privately... That would be really sweet of you!

>Sorry that i get back to you so late, but my work just taking up too much of my time. About the Car - Sure thing, Luv, you can have the SkyNight or any other car from my garage and do not even think on driving yourself, i have instructed my chauffeur to be at your disposal, but please do not make him take part in something illegal, you know what i speak of right?<

Studio part

After checking on the Gear and adding the newly acquired tags, Panther and Freya decides to join the technical Personal, after  bit of smalltalk the conversation goes more into techincal terms and Freya decides to use this moment to take her leave and join BigBen for a word.

Jamie and Panther

Jamie looks a bit disturbed, when pressed on the matter, he complains that there is a leak on the set. there is nothing he could do, but Panther might be better equipped as he is. One thing is sure though - this is no P2.0 user or small fish like that, but the leaking material comes from the movie shots from their own Cameras. He asks Panther to helping this matter and provides her with a security account on the central node, from there it should be easy to see from where the footage is being getting out to the public.
Will panther repair the leak or just redirect the footage to her personal blog?

Freya and Big Ben

Big Ben Looked at Freya and then "You have a weapon right, and you can use it? Go there and help the construction workers!"
The Construction workers seemed scared, and in their rangs were 2 security guards, one of them seemed to bleed from a wound.
"there are giant rats in the cellar, could you get rid of them, we have a wall to patch up after a group of fans broke it down, it's a security risk, you understand right."
But will Freya help them in vermin extermination?

[farothel]

"You're right, Rafa," Panther said, "I'll check for other tags."
She did so, finding some, and she added their frequencies into her commlink.  Next she got her Dragonfly drone out, which she placed on one of the shelves.  From there it had a good view on the door and it could sit still, a prop between a number of other props.  She linked its camera, now with facial recognition software, into the team's network.
"That way you can keep an eye on it," she said to Rafa, "I'll get some pictures of the studio crew so we can identify the people coming in.  If everybody who has a camera in their eyes or glasses can help with that, we can get it done much quicker."

After setting it up, she went to the technicians.  When asked to help out, she logged into the network and tapped into the feed that was going out.  As she was in the studio, she could easily see from which cameras the feed was taken.  Now she only had to track to where it was going.  Loading her programs, she started working.


OOC:
I've said that there were RFID tags, as I assume that at least Slade has put some on, for the same reason as I have just done.
currently I'm working in AR.
loaded programs: my six ergonomic programs (armour, stealth, analyse, biofeedback filter, reality filter, ECCM), attack, track, encrypt, command, browse

track on the feed, to find where it goes to (I try to do so without letting the opponent know):
@Kour: can you PM me the stealth rating of the opposing hacker, as I need that to define my dicepool.