[Mean Streets, Cruel Towers]The Milk Run

[Grey]

Califrescoe Docks, 1st of Greentide, NC1200, 01:00 hours


Secure Meeting Point - Sealed Warehouse.


Contact - Jack Half-Smile





The warehouse is dark, empty. Cavernous, even. Like a gutted carcass, stained by the last dregs of life and death. The rain hammers on the roof, and lightning streaks the skies. This is primary power gen time, when the Spire whips the storm into a frenzy.


Perfect working weather.


Your contact sits at a portable terminal, at an ad-hoc table of garbage. He's got a professional air about him, jacked into his terminal, fingers flying across the cheap analogue interface. He seems breathtakingly unconcerned about the way you outnumber and outgun him.


Also here are your co-workers for the night. Maybe you've worked with some of them before, maybe you haven't. But this mission pays 2000 creds a head, and if Jack has that kind of cash to throw around you'll probably need the backup.

 

[Silvertongued]

Igo Tyrell


Igo is leaning against a nearby pillar, clad in a full length poncho, a bowl like hat over his head. A black carrying case sits next to him, and his hands are folded against his midsection. He seems... boring... to the eye, and the mind rebels when trying to retain information about him. It's almost as if he's part of the landscape rather than a living, breathing person.


He watches everyone around him quietly.

 

[Teh Frixz]

Today was jittery. The air outside was jittery. That meant a buildup of whatever the hell mages used to channel electricity in the atmosphere which means abnormal heart rythyms, lack of oxygen in the blood and potential hormone flare ups. All from a breath of air.


Riley sucks down another deep breath from her mask, deep enough to make her eyes water. She exhales the clear air slowly and carefully to make the sensation of respiration last. Like a hit, she tapers the end before sucking in again. Riley already wished she could pull out another eye lash but they were already gone. Little signs of minor mutilation crisscross her body, everything covered under layers of medical tape and gauze.


Twitching in place, she took one final breath before calming down. The same pattern she used to relax on long wait jobs. Days spent outside a targets home, waiting for the perfect, precise, intimate moment to send a bullet through soft tissue and bone from some impossible angle.


It wasn't her job or really even her field to talk first in these situations so like the peice of living background she had watched from afar earlier, Riley keeps her mouth shut and ears open.

 

[KyoDemer]

Nathaniel stood half in the shadow of the lone light source, half out. Each flash of lightening, Nathaniel observing the other people around him, including the two people trying to act like objects in the background. They could be friends or enemies, and that made him slightly nervous.


He lacked any cool professional outfit, rather relying on a nondescript black t shirt and black long sleeve skin tight shirt under the T shirt. The most notable item of attire are his gloves, which glint in an unusual way in his balled up fist.

 

[SephirothSage]

The Man in the Corner, stands watching Jack- eyes focused in on his employer working the same field he so loves to engage in himself. A faint grin light's his face, as he flexes his hand, in and out- he is reedy, thin and lithe without looking frail and weak somehow; though he is both of those things.

 

[PixelWitch]

Shrei


She seems to be the only one as at ease as their Contact. Or the situation in general. And the only one standing out in the open and not skulking in the shadows either.


Instead out of a mixture of boredom and warming up for the upcoming mission, her long lithe frame lopes about the open space, tranquilly moving between doing stretches and tai chi stances, pulling herself into a floor leg split with a feline ease. The image not helped by her augs having tabby tiger stripes painted upon them. Her helmet, the only thing she is not currently wearing, sits on the floor nearby.


She yawns wide, tongue curling.

 

[Cirno]

A side door creaks open, and the smell of wet pavement and ozone rush in as the rain crashes down outside. Arte hastily shuts it behind him. The clang echoes through the gutted warehouse. He cringes and slosh-jogs his way over. At least I'm not late.


It's only after a few flashes of lightning that he freezes up, realising there are people behind him.

 

[Grey]

Jack disconnects. In profile, he's handsome in that slightly-better-off ganger way. Expensive coat over a cheap shirt. Good boots.


When he turns his head to face you, though, then you see where the nickname comes from - one half of his face overtaken by gleaming, exposed bonework. Perpetually half a smile.


"Well," he says, standing. "Glad you all made it. Bet you're dying with curiosity, right?" He winks at Shrei in particular.


"So, you know me - name and or rep. Know each other? 'Cause if not, you wanna. Here's the vid, kids; this job is easymodo. A milk run. But!" he says, clapping his hands. "But if you work out, as an outfit... I represent certain interests who'd like to have a team on retainer. Reliable, dependable, and disinclined to shoot each other over paydata before they're even off the premises."


His terminal projects a grisly security capture on the wall behind him.


They weren't even out of the vault.

 

[KyoDemer]

"So, you need someone to get into that vault, get something out, and not get slaughtered?" Nathaniel asked, motioning at the video. "Whatever it is, it must be damn valuable to gather us here."

 

[Silvertongued]

Igo Tyrell


"You must be new to this kid," piped up Igo, shuffling from his sitting place.


"Otherwise, you'd know the first rule," he explained patiently, as if to a child. "You don't ask questions. At least not about the whats or the whys or the whos. Nosy people tend to have accidents, as do their coworkers. I'm not a nosy person, so I don't care what the item is, or what it does, or why Jack wants it. All that's important is that he's willing to pay two k a head for an easy job,"

 

[Grey]

Jack nods.


"Brains and brawn. You can make it work. Anyway, that job," he says, thumbing over his shoulder at the bloody scene, "is done. But I do want you to snatch some data. Prototype spike blueprints from Dreamscape."

 

[Teh Frixz]

Riley


"Loud or quiet? Quick or slow? Devil is in the details and details make the world go round and round. "


She fiddles with some of her frayed tape, looking up to occasionally meet people's eyes before looking back down.

 

[KyoDemer]

"May be I am, maybe I'm not. Don't patronize me." Nathaniel snarled at Igo, then took a deep breath.

 

[Silvertongued]

Igo Tyrell


"Look, I couldn't give two shits what you do or what you're like outside of the run, but if you're not the epitome of professional in the run, I will not hesitate to leave your ass in the dust if it looks like you're going to endanger either the mission or my life," sighed Igo in a tired voice.


"But yeah, like the mummy said Jack, details would be appreciated. Location, threat level, if you got current plans of the building that'd be good too," he continued, turning to their contact.

 

[KyoDemer]

"Funny that, I would do the same, except, I will go through someone if I can't go around them. If you became a road block to me and mine, then don't think for a second that I-" Nathaniel paused, sighed and shook his head. "Don't push me, and I won't push you."


He then turned is attention back to Jack. Knowing the mission details would be nice and something to get his mind off of the living set piece.

 

[SephirothSage]

Crause smiles from the corner, humming faintly. "Like the man said. Tell us what we need to know, and we'll get to work."

 

[PixelWitch]

Shrei


Curiosity huh?


"Curiosity killed the Cat" she coos back to Jack, smiling, "But, satisfaction brought it back,"


She lopes to her feet, curling her strange tiger toes, shoulders clicking as she loosens the joints, elbows making little circles in the air.


She casts a sly glance towards Igo and Nathaniel, "No need for bickering boys, that's just bad ju-ju vibes,"

 

[Cirno]

But what kind of milk run needs this many people? Arte raises a hand to block the failed vault job from his peripheral vision. He glances to Nathaniel, but the man with the suitcase seems to have a low tolerance for newbies. Without saying a word, Arte returns his attention to Shrei and Jack.

 

[SephirothSage]

Johan grins at the Cyborg Cat lady, and nods his agreement. "Inndeeeeed...." He purrs, grinning as he flicks a switchblade, then slides it closed- again, and again.

 

[Grey]

"Alllright," Jack says, turning back to his terminal.


"I have here a rough map. You're going into a Dreamscape Interface Solutions production office. They've got a Nightwatch medium security contract - shouldn't be much of a challenge. All you gotta do is hack the executive terminal and snatch the data - and anything you like, but that's all I'm paying for."

 

[Silvertongued]

Igo Tyrell


Igo nodded, brow furrowed. A map was good, but a bad map would be far worse than no map.


"Seems easy enough. How reliable is the map though?"

 

[KyoDemer]

Nathaniel studied the map, it seemed okay. He committed it to memory, should the mission go south, getting out fast is important. Getting his own hide out of the way, even more so.

 

[Cirno]

Arte lowers his hand to see the map. Mesda Tech dealt in web services, so he hadn't seen in a production office before. Perhaps they shared some similarities though. Might be easiest to sneak in with the cleaning crew. Office usually gives out generic visitor ident to them. Arte glances amongst the group, wondering if that too was obvious to professionals.

 

[Grey]

"As reliable as we're gonna get," Jack replies. "It's not a big place, and it will be signposted - it's a business, afterall. You all need to know anything else?

 

[Teh Frixz]

Riley


A deep breath.


"Nearby useful structures, guard rotation shifts, any sort of sub security systems and if I can get a visual in the building or do I need to crawl up a drain pipe?" The muscles along the edges of her face tighten, revealing a smile under the mask. "I don't expect my employer to do my work for me though, I can get the layout memorized in a night or so. I'm ready to set off"