[Lorebane24]

Mato:  It looks like the elevators are pretty unpopular with the tenants.  Not many people are using them except on the 4th and 5th floors.  Everyone esle seems to be going out the western door and using the fire escape to come and go, not wanting to wait on other tenants.

The people here all seem checked out, resigned, or high, and the Halloweeners arent keeping a very active eye on the building.  It seems like they are confident that the camera tjey-ve det up, the hellhound, amd occasional check-ins are sufficient security.  You dont think it will be difficult to approach the room undetected, but once you're in, that's anither matter.

[Lorebane24]

Jawsey:  Those two weird cats are watching you.  Amongst the myriad of auras they're easy to lose in the crowd, but there is no mistaking then when they pop up, and they seem to moving around with your astral form, planting themselves at the base of whichever buildings you move to.

[Beta]

Jawsey doesn't have anything against cats.  Or he didn't, until now.  But these ones are puzzling and behaving oddly, and that makes them a potential problem.

Of course, one of the things that Jawsey loves about the astral is how easy it is to run from your problems!  He heads over the larger road running to the north of the tenements, and speeds up.  He isn't looking to leave the city so it isn't maximum astral speed, but certainly enough to to get out of the sight range of cats that are bound to the physical. 

Once he is several kilometers away he stops and waits for a minute, then returns, but moving a block south and again cutting through the rubble on his way to the car, to minimize how long his astral form can be seen near the car.

Once back he sends AROs describing what he saw, including a rough layout of the apartment.  He finishes up with <<I can at least distract the beast, with a spell boost maybe take it out.  And that is the only living guard in there.  But I have no idea of what tech they might have in there, and I don't see a way to get the kid out of there without attracting attention on the way out.  I might be able to levitate him down, but not quickly and not while fighting in the astral.  Getting him to the ground, into the car, and out of here without a pack of Halloweeners on our tail could be tough.>>

[gilga]

AM replied >> Well, we will be seen it is a public place. The question is seen doing what.

1. I can levitate the boy faster down the window, I only need line of sight. It should be safer than braving the entire building. 

2. We need a distraction while we do that, either we set the hellhound free and have it run amok in the building, or we get the Nova Rich to do some mess of their own. Manipulate their pride and ego and have them stand up for themselves. 

3. In any case, a fourth floor is like what say 20 meters?  We are talking about 12-9 seconds of levitation to get down, and they don't want to kill the boy. So even if they spot the escape they are more likely to gang on us below the window than shoot at him. I think it would still be faster than the elevator or stairs.  Perhaps Bobby or Mato can physically accompany the boy. Either by sneaking into the building or with shape-changing magic. Just in case the boy cannot make it on his own, or in case we missed some security measure. 

4. We can try to loop the cameras - but if our faces are not going to appear there - it is a risk. If I succeed then we get a bit longer before we are detected. If I fail then we may lose the element of surprise. So I say we only use hacking if the plan involves our faces in the camera. Even then we can wear ski masks and stuff.

 

[Beta]

<<We don't know yet how the doors are secured.  I can't tell that from the astral, sorry.  They could have something as simple as a slide bolt on the outside or as fancy as a maglock, I'd guess?>>

<<I have a pair of binoculars, if we can get them to Mato up on the building, maybe as a starting point he could take a good look at the door?  And AM, you didn't see any locks on the matrix, right?  If we have to we wait for them to send someone to the room, intercept somehow, take the key?  Or let them go in, I hit the hellhound, Bobby and Mato hit the Weeners?>>

[gilga]

>> We can wait for someone to go in, intercept him on the way out and take his key and open the door. Let me check the matrix...  She looked around trying to see what kind of security measures are visible online.


OOC:
Matrix perception: 11d6t5 5

[Tecumseh]

<<I'm not worried about getting in>> Mato tells the team. <<Locks are no problem. Mechanical, maglock, no matter. And, if they are, then doors aren't a problem.>>

<<We can wait for the next feeding to take place, and piggyback on that, but I say we go now while it's quiet, preferably from the west so that the parking lot can't see us.>>

Mato briefly contemplates intercepting the feeding so that he can grab the steaks for himself, but then figures that they're probably feeding the thing Grade E meat, maybe horse testicles for the extra iron.

[Jack_Spade]

Bobby had almost started to act as the distraction for Mato to grab the ganger. Now he was glad he didn't.
<<Well, that was easy. Now we know where the boy is - if it is indeed the boy and not an unrelated prisoner.
Now if I understand you correctly, you are worried about the person watching the cameras. If you don't trust yourself to hack them, I could take out the guard - or Mato. But hacking would probably be safer. Either I or Jawsee can knock out the hellhound.

Getting the prisoner out means taking out the hell hound. If I don't use my armor I can enter the roof unseen and make my way down. After that it's just a matter of getting into position. I have a microwelder that I can carry in my various forms. That would allow me to open both the door and a window on the opposite site of the building to evacuate the prisoner to you via levitation and without being seen by the bar below. If everything else fails I can transform into a gorilla and climb down with him. >>

[Beta]

<<I can go do a sweep of the building, but those strange cats may show up.  I don't know if anyone pays attention to them or not?  If we need the intel, then it is worth the chance.  But if we are pretty sure of the plan then I'd hold off I'm about to go in, to give less chance for anyone to react if they notice anything odd.>>

After a moment he adds <<And if nobody is paying attention to those cats, if we fed them, do you think we could adopt them?  Could make interesting astral security of our own, by the looks of it.>>

[gilga]

AM texted >> Well, after carefully examining the host and cameras I can loop the cameras.

[Tecumseh]

Mato stands and backs away from the western edge of the roof.

<<Coming back to the car for my kit>> he tells the team. He returns to the northern edge of the roof, looks around to see if anyone will notice him stepping him off the edge, then does so at an appropriate moment. His hydraulic jacks easily absorb the 6-meter fall; he hardly has to break his stride as he walks east to return to the Americar.

He gets his things from the car. The sun is setting and the temperature is dropping, so he uses it as an excuse to zip up his jacket. He stuffs his ballistic mask down the neck of his jacket so that he can put it on when closer to the target. A bug scanner goes in one pocket of his jacket along with a tag eraser.

"If they're getting tight with their Matrix security then they might have a tag on him. We'll make sure he's clean before walking out the door."

The other pocket gets his autopicker and his lockpick set. Carrying both is probably redundant but it's an old habit that he hasn't broken yet.

Bobby makes a point about not fiddling with the lock and just using a miniwelder instead.

"That's true," Mato says. "But an old place like this... I don't want to light the door on fire. Seems like a miracle that the hell hound hasn't burned the whole place down already." He glances across the street at the giant pile of rubble to the south. "Nobody ever accused the Halloweeners of being fire marshals."

Still, he takes the point and slips his miniwelder in a back pocket. He considers his area jammer before leaving it in the car. The sequencer gets left behind too; Mato can probably do a better job with his hands. Then he comes across his plasteel restraints, which he contemplates by slapping them against his palm.

"I hate to think we'll need these, but just in case..." A couple of them go into his other back pocket.

He skips his hardware toolkit; it's only really needed for transponder-embedded keys, and even then Mato is terrible at them. He can only defeat the most basic versions, and only when he gets lucky, and even then it takes him at least a minute. If he runs into one of those he'll go to Plan B.

"Alright," he says. "Ready.

"Did we try interacting with the cats? he asks Beta.

"And speaking of cats, what form are you taking?" he asks Bobby.

[Jack_Spade]

<<Good question. I'll be entering over the roof, so first a bird than something that allows me to open door handles - probably a gorilla. Might come in handy during the escape as well. I'll be incomunicado without my goggles, so I'll rely on Jawsee and his astral form to inform me about anything important. Therefore go ahead, I'll catch up with you once you are in position.>>
Bobby replied while he slowly transformed back, getting rid of his gear again, stashing it in the car.

[Beta]

Jawsey looked at Mato blankly for a moment, then admits "I never thought to try and interact with the cats.  They have ... strange auras.  Like they were dead."

He looks up for a moment, thinking, then shakes his head "I've never paid a lot of attention to animals, I can't say that I have any clue on what they could be.  Especially with that 'they don't appear to be awakened, or even living, so they shouldn't have any awareness of my astral form -- but yet they seem to somehow be showing up where I am.  Zombie cats?  Sounds like something out of a bad trid, but then again this is Redmond, things straight out of a bad trid aren't all that uncommon from what I understand."

[Tecumseh]

Mato hmmms. "My concern was that if someone - perhaps the finger-wiggler in the bar - has a paranormal guard dog then what's to stop them from having a paranormal guard cat?

"Other than cats not really enjoying training, nor guard duty, nor work of any kind really.

"Do the cats have a physical component or are they astral only? There are enough strays around here than I haven't been paying attention to unusual cat behavior. Maybe this is just the Barrens being the Barrens."

He juts his thumb over his shoulder. "Otherwise let's just buy all the catnip toys at the Stuffer Shack, toss them into the alley, and let the kitties go nuts. While we're in there we can see if there's some zebra meat for the dog or something."

[Beta]

"Fish.  Catnip is fine too, but I remember the stories of the colony of strays that used to live around the port, living in scraps from the fish.  By the time I can remember, the dilocks saw more Russian smugglers than fish, and the cats were gone, probably eaten by someone or something.  But anyways, I'm told cats will show up quickly to the smell of fish.  And if they end up fighting over it, that's another distraction, right?"

"That is, if the Stuffer Shack has anything resembling fish.  That might be an issue."