[snake_eyes]

@Sam: Unca Sam??? Are you alright? 'Trix is buzzing with a shootout in your vicinity. Here's our location <<ARO: van position and quickest route to us via walking>>

@Omar: don't forget you have D1 in the vicinity of where Unca Sam is.

Thanx. No, Im paying off little favour to one of my friends. Id say that you are too currious, well, I can see that in this case whole place will be just extension to your eyes tomorrow. Maybe you better take care that nobody is watching us tomorrow. But thats skinning the cat that is not death yet. We got a plenty work to do and even if I am optimist, its not sure we will be alive to eat that dinner.

@Omar: that would be a shame! That restraunt has some good reviews!

Mouse will check up on Mr. Flynn through Wiz.

[Sentinemodo]

Quickly, Fractal turns to Lips: "Could you astrally project to the Geisha School where Kikuya should be, and take a look at how many people are there, as well as on the old lady's soul? Well, if the place does not have protections against astral eavesdropping, that is."

"Of course. Just a moment so that I can check where I have to go."
Lips, opens his mapsoft to memorize the way to the school. After that, he calls a small watcher and order him quickly to stay with his body.

"Okay, should take me only a few minutes, if you can, don't go so far until I'm back."

With this, Lips puts himself in a comfortable position inside the car and flys toward the Geisha School.

The astral haze around Lips immaterial aura as he speed toward the geisha school. In just a few moments, he reaches his destination and is greeted by small spirit looking like bunraku doll of samurai. As you feel the space around you it is rich with emotions of various aspects, both joyful and sorrow, anger and innocent laugh, saddness and restlessness and expectation all hightened in volumen and expression.

Make an astral perception roll.
The haze is a result of background count of 1.

"Welcome to the House of Aikiwa. Please be advised that tresspassing into the house without manifesting or materializing is unwelcomed."

The spirit moved off to replay the same message to the spirit of man that passed the street in his own purpose (by the time he had finished saying his welcome text, the spirit was long gone of course).

[Larzarus]

Astral Perception: 4 hits

[Sentinemodo]

2 hits - this is very weak water spirit of a shinto tradition.
You note that it is fighting the background count on it own as it is reducing its force as much as it reduces yours.
4 hits - the spirits original force is 2 but redcued by the background count to 1. it is a bound spirit, and you can see an astral link leading into the city.

the count makes the spirit quite dumb, reducing it to the watcher level of intelligence. and since it is patrolling the house in irregular intervals, and you don't see any others around, you can try to move past it 'when it does not look' taking benefit of the emotional fog that covers the area.

if you would like to try, you'll need to make an Intuition - 1 opposite test against the spirit's (Intuition + assension) test.

EDIT: I forgot about your qualities in the above, but fortunatelly they even out in this scenario, the spirit gets -2 to his perception roll from you astral chameleon quality, but get +2 due to your water spirit bane.

[Sentinemodo]

OK, try to get some more on those two Yaks.
For this Flynn guy...hm...find this guy in tunnels, infected by some loose carrier. He seems like he maintains his consciousness, well you know how this works. But he seem as a pretty straight and fair man to me. I promissed him Ill try to do something for his wife and yet unborn child. You have some funds for KIA in Knight? maybe if he gives up some kind of last heroic stand against crime?
OR...you have some special directives for such cases?

It is getting curious case Mr. Gibo, how often you find police officers in need, shot or infected. I certainly hope you aren't maneuvering me into anything ... undesired. I'll send a notice to the evac team immediately. They'll carry him into pestilence ward. With some luck they get to him before he transforms completely. There is no way to be stopped, but with medicine they can protect his brain. They won't let him out until they find a way to reverse the process, which for the current prospect means ever, but his wife will get a disability pension for him from insurance.

he hangs on for few seconds making a call

I'll get back to you when I find something more on the other subject. Bye.

EDIT: removed the line as the conversation continued on Omar's side

[Larzarus]

Lips moves a little bit back, and calls a spirit of his own.

Force 3: no time to roll dices right now

"Hallo my dear friend, please wait a few seconds and then distract the small spirit over there. If necessary, pock it a little bit was a stick."

Lips then moves to the other side of the area and awaits the distraction to enter the area.

[Sentinemodo]

rolling for you:
summoning -> Magic(5) + Initiate(1) - Background Count(1) + Summoning(4) + Power Focus(1) -> 10d6.hits(5)=2
summoning resist -> Force(3) -> 3d6.hits(5)=1
1 service
Drain Resist 2S -> resisted on buying hits

A decoy proved to be successful. When the spirit distracted the smaller guardian Lips was able to slip inside.
The house is consisting of two floors, filled with mutliple humans - young girls and woman. They live in small rooms at the upper floor, the base floor  is divided into a large reception hall, a small room behind it and then a corridor leading to large kitchen with a dining room, large classroom filled with desks and chairs and several smaller chambers filled with instruments of various arts and stairs to the upper floor and at the end of it a warded room - a warded walls surrounds some 20 square meters of area. 

The ward is Force 5 it is placed just outside the room's wallls and you're unable to take a look inside of it.

[Larzarus]

Lips flies back to his body for now. On his way, he also dismisses his spirit, so it can stop talking to the other watcher and is free to leave into the astral ether.

Back in his meat body: "The school seems clean, no big magical guards. If we go there and they won't let us in, I could sneak back to try to make contact through the astral space."

[Netzgeist]

Fractal listen to Lips report: "Didn't you see... is that right? Do you "see" people when astraly projecting? well, anyway, did you check Madame Kikuya while you were there?"

Fractal does not seem too confortable in talking about something he does not truly understand, but he makes no attempt to hide his ignorance in astral matters.

[Sichr]

Well, Jack, I cannot say Im not surprised how often do cops around here get into this kind of troubles...on the other side, where I came from, there were no cops, so I lack comparation. Nice that you are so eager to help, and no, I dont want you to do anything...undesired..as you`ve put it. So, I bet your medevac team will be better if the know where to pick him up. Since I am in touch with the guy, Ill be able to guide him to randez vous point in cca 10 minutes. I know a few escape routes, from tunnels, let me see...
[consulting mapsoft]
OK there is some kind of access on this coordinates [GPS Tea house]
It is forgotten drainage pipe or something like that...probably leads to some building above...From what I saw it won`t be difficult to make it accessible. And Jack...here is your reservation.

Mouse, I need a control on Whiz, Ill guide Flynn under that basement so he is prepared in case we get this alternative plan moving. Can I Jump in?

[Sentinemodo]

He checks with the data sprite to see how much progress it has made. He may need to help with it's queries.

assuming you set priorities as follows:
- Madame Kikuya of the Aikiwa Okiya;
- Yoshiro, Yakuza lieutnant in Denver;
- Shijeo Iijima, Yakuza small-fry.
- two yakuza goons by picture

1st service - Madame Kikuya
stopping after four 10 minutes intervals to optimize results vs time - 8d6 + 7d6 + 6d6 + 5d6 -> 26d6.hits(5)=11 2 tresholds reached (4 hits required for each), sensing that another part of info is available in the files he got into, sprite invested another round of search -> 4d6.hits(5)=1 3 treshold reached.

• Madame Kikuya runs a teahouse in Yakuza turf and under their protection. (from the news advertisment and attached user comments)
• Madame Kikuya runs also a reputable geisha house. The Yakuza’s mixed in that too. (from a German geisha culture and art fan blogging node, reporting on his journey to Denver)
• The geisha house spent a serious amount of money on healthcare during last six months. Specifically the medical life supporting bed and matrix communication equipment. (info hacked from the delivery company systems)

2nd service Yoshiro (assuming you get at least two services)
stopping after four 10 minutes intervals to optimize results vs time - 8d6 + 7d6 + 6d6 + 5d6 -> 26d6.hits(5)=11 again sensing that another part of info is available in the files he got into, sprite invested another round of search -> 4d6.hits(5)=0 no luck though and spending an Edge to reduce critical glitch to simple glitch, which in turn resulted in loosing one more service. retrying -> 3d6.hits(5)=1 3 treshold reached.

• Yakuza man. (listed as 300 yen worth prize to anyone beating him on a chineese triad related node, a cam record proof required)
• Yasanuri Yoshiro, male, age 32, charges: illegal guns possessions, disruption of public calm, known affiliation Yakuza, suspected: extortion, pimp, drug dealing, btl dealing, illegal gambling (from a hakerz node - stolen reports from Knight Errants profiles)
• “I overheard him bragging about screwing his bosses out of some money or something.” The entire post on the blogging node had nothing to do with Yakuza or Yoshiro, but an advanced comparison on who could be hiding behind the nicknames in all of the author's posts supported by the analysis of the blog subcribers, their posts and indication as yakuza matrix meetplace allowed the sprite to assess the probability as this sentence as true on 92,36%.

Unfortunately the glitch during browsing alerted the node admin and he jammed the signal to cut the node from matrix. Sprite had to use his electronic warfare power to escape with the data using up his last service.

[snake_eyes]

Mouse, I need a control on Whiz, Ill guide Flynn under that basement so he is prepared in case we get this alternative plan moving. Can I Jump in?

@Omar: sure Unca Omar. <<user id for Wiz>> He's not looking to good.

As the sprite finishes his report...
Data Sprite: Thank you Data.
@Team: I got some information back on Madame Kikuya and Yoshiro. <<BOT
\\unknown\>Madame Kikuya
*Madame Kikuya runs a teahouse in Yakuza turf and under their protection. Though we already new that.
*Madame Kikuya runs also a reputable geisha house. And that to. Now the interesting part:
*The geisha house spent a serious amount of money on healthcare during last six months. Specifically the medical life supporting bed and matrix communication equipment. Perhaps Madame Kikuya is sick?

\\unknown\>Yasanuri Yoshiro
*Yakuza man. (listed as 300 yen worth prize to anyone beating him on a chineese triad related node, a cam record proof required)--for you Unca Omar 
*Yasanuri Yoshiro, male, age 32, charges: illegal guns possessions, disruption of public calm, known affiliation Yakuza, suspected: extortion, pimp, drug dealing, btl dealing, illegal gambling--ya...ya...we know.
*“I overheard him bragging about screwing his bosses out of some money or something.” Based on who could be hiding behind the nicknames in all of the author's posts supported by the analysis of the blog subcribers, their posts and indication as yakuza matrix meetplace suggests the probability that this sentence is true at 92.36%. This could be useful.
EOT>>. I'm still working on the others: Shijeo Iijima and the two yakuza goons by picture.

[Netzgeist]

Fractal reads the message and looks at the boy leaned against the seat.

@Mouse: "Boy, that was amazing. You managed to dig up gold! With your little search, you just gave us at least two other routes which we can pursue to free our girl. Great job."


The elf wonders a little bit: he still thinks he can talk Kikuya in kindly liberating the geisha, but having an ace up one's sleeve is better than having to rely only on poker face. And then again, now it seems almost easy to put this Yoshiro guy between a rock and a hard place.

@Mouse: "About this dirty and sloppy Yoshiro... could you make a small "dosier" on his sayings about screwing his superiors and the analysis you done in order to determine he is the source of them, and that this statements may be true? The word blackmail has just become cristaline in my ears, and maybe there's a little bit more to us in that game than just freeing Mayuri."

The kid probably can't see it with his natural eyes, but if he has any sensor that can watch the images inside the van, he would see a sinister grin in the elf face.

[snake_eyes]

@Fractal: Thanks, Mr. Fractal! I'll get that "dosier" you're referring to together.

Mouse will start to work on the "dossier" that Mr. Fractal requested. First he will acquire a new access id. Filling in the blanks as to who posted the comment and focusing on any possible leads as to what from what racket and which bosses--something more specific than the "I heard so and so say..." comment.

He'll use his registered data sprite to assist-as needed. Warning it that if it should use the same blog as his predecessor, it will be on high alert after the last attempt so avoid it unless absolutely necessary. Hopefully, he gleaned all he needed to be able to get something more concrete elsewhere. He could be holding back from any number (or all) of his illegal activities.

[Larzarus]

Fractal listen to Lips report: "Didn't you see... is that right? Do you "see" people when astraly projecting? well, anyway, did you check Madame Kikuya while you were there?"

I can see the people's aura. But, unfortunately, you won't find any picture of an aura in the matrix. So, I saw people and objects, but can tell you for sure, that Mrs. Kikuya was among them. However, I would assume she has a rather old, experienced aura. Since I only saw younger auras, I assume that she wasn't there.

Though, ... there was some ward, protecting a room inside the school. Might she be ill, bound to a hospital bed inside this room?

 If necessary, I could punch through the ward or better first show you the responsible mage, so she or he won't sound an alarm.