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Wraith doesn't react to the missed shot, except to sigh disappointedly as she drops her character. "Y'know, the plan was for you to get out there and mix it up a bit while I snarf your files. Once I'm out, we jet, and maybe everybody gets to wake up tomorrow.
But, you want to play "whose is bigger". That's fine," she says as her quick-sheath ships her pistol into her hand and she takes an answering shot.
Then Wraith spins, ducking around the corner, back into the Employee's room, forcing the boss lady to come to her.
Dame Tannhäuser goes in for another slash after the Vesk swings, bit of light starting to flick off of her blade.
Allison makes an ugly burn on the boss forehead. Dame Tannhäuser manages to connect with the vesk this time sending him dying to the ground. This leaves the card guys in shock.
Boreal grunts as the hammer connects, she watches the vesk drop and hits the gunner next to her
Eric points his supercharged weapon at the nearest bad guy (k10) and fires
vs KAC
Eric single-handedly takes one of the card guys out of combat. The remaining two panic and retreat into the boss' office.
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After the two remaining warfighters retreat courageously under the skirts of their boss lady, Wraith giggles and steps lightly to the side. Stopping once she can see the side-most card-guy, she taps a button on her wrist-mounted comm. The custom-built cyber-rig sends a lethal amount of nethack into a nearby monitor.
It shorts out and sends a thin streak of lighting at the guy, zapping his nipples.
Wraith takes advantage of his momentary distraction to shoot him.
Boreal rolls her shoulders, and drops her doshko. She grabs the discarded artillery lazer and positions herself at the corner of the bosses door. Once in position she fires a laser at one of the gunmen.
The card guy screams in pain as his nipple piercing melts from the electric jolt and the laser pistol drains most of his life. But the pain lasts only short as Boreal ends his miserable existence.
The boss lady isn't unprepared though and so Boreal has to take the fire.
EHRK moves into the room and behind Allison. He uses a chair for cover.
This continuance of violence is highly illogical, Biological Humanoids. You have a much higher probability of survival if you surrender now and hope the Vesk Boreal Typhon is not disposed towards additional bloodshed. Eric calls out to the gang bangers in the next room.
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Manteca limps into the room, clutching his seared arm, but still holding the pistol at the ready. "The android speaks true - our vesk is at least as angry as your vesk was, and she's still standing!" He holds the pistol at the ready in preparation for any rebuttals.
You hear some item hitting the floor and then with a kick the lazer pistol comes sliding out of the room. "I give up!" a guy calls.
"You stupid pussy. Fight and die like a man!" the boss lady shouts angrily, followed by the noise of item impact and an "Ouch!" from the guy.
Eric thinks at Boreal Typhon.
You hear someone drop into a chair and the boss lady sighs.
Manteca moves up behind Boreal, pistol at the ready.
"If you're surrendering, show it! Come out with your hands up!," he yells into the room.
Guys, did you hear me! I sound like a cop!, he telepathically exclaims at his allies.
The card guy comes out, hands up. From inside you hear the boss voice "I'm surrendering here in my seat, thank you very much."
Manteca wonders whether or not to believe her.
Well, seems trustworthy, he thinks to the party, and puts his laser pistol back in his pocket. He walks into the room.
The probability that the biologic humanoid in the room is attempting to lure some unfortunate soul into a trap is forty two point eight three three. I suggest someone provide visual data to alter my probabilistic data algorithms. Eric says his voice slightly muffled by Allison's posterior, hoping someone else will put eyes on the targets.
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Allison is momentarily distracted as she grinds her rump into the andriod's nose, 'Man, that is like the -perfect- shape and consistency. Do they engineer him for that?' she thinks before shaking herself back to reality, extending her gun, and stalking toward the door.
"Alright, I beleive you, but that means you go and surrender away from your desk so I can get what we came here for. Or you can stay at your desk and then I'll have to move your body before I get what we came here for. Your call. I can honestly say that it makes no difference to me."
Wraith glides into the room, pistol leading the way. Once she's inside and no one's shooting at her, she motions the rest in.
"Someone tie her up. You can question her if you want, but her 'puter is gonna sing a sweet song sooner than you can break through her lies, I'd wager."
Assuming the lady either voluntarily steps away from her desk, or something vaguely Vesk-shaped carries her bodily away, Wraith pulls up the chair and starts her work, looking for answers about dwarves and death, megacorps and murder-for-hire, and the recipe that got all of them together.
The boss woman rolls away from the desk with her chair leaving the desk for Allison to work.
The computer system is no real challenge for Allison, but the data is not easy to read. Accounting would be a helpful skill for that. What you can tell is the amount of alcohol and other recreational drugs sold here. But there are also a few things that doesn't make sense. Most of the large amounts are deliveries of some kind and therefore expenses and most of the revenues are smaller amounts of guests paying their tabs. But there are some large revenues that are also customer tabs but like 'birthday party for Mr. Smith'. 'Wedding party for Mr. and Mrs. Johnson'. You wonder that John Doe hasn't had a party here.
Some of these parties match the rest but some are conflicted with normal revenues from everyday clubbing. You can tell for sure there is something fishy here. But evil mistress didn't write her diary on that device.
Manteca crosses his arms in front of him and puts on his best authoritative speechvoice. "Listen here, human - this bad code work is cute, but this whole thing is going to crack in minutes in front of any real InfoSec employees and then you're going to have 0 leverage. So here's the deal - you give us the information on what these payments are really for, and this whole thing gets swept under the rug and you don't have to deal with anyone not in plainclothes. You catch my drift, softskin?"
EH-RK enters the room and says Your surrender here was highly logical. Congratulations Biological Human Lifeform. You will know that we are here for specific reasons. That you have not asked those reasons is telling and so there is a seventy three point seven nine two probability that you already know why we are here. Please continue to do the logical thing and point us to your personal datapad.
Eric begins hacking the personal datapad
"Are you from the IRS or what? Don't tell me you kick in the door of the club to check my books." The boss snorts. "You step onto the station and into a gang fight. And next thing you do is kicking our butt. You're from the Hardscrabble Collective aren't you? Because of that dwarf."
That is a most logical deduction. I believe you are the most logical gang member with whom I have had the pleasure of conversing. EH-RK says looking up from his work
We are indeed investigating the unfortunate demise of the Dwarf Kreel. You had a hand in that death, we wish to know why.
"If we had a hand in that, the reason would have been money." the boss lady replies.
The datapad is nothing special. It contains almost no personal information. But a long history of video streams watched over the time. Some of those are depraved beyond imagination. The one using that is definitely a case for Dr. Manteca's couch.
"Money from...?"
"A guy in a trench-coat with a hat drawn into his face. On a cred stick with no signature on it."
"Or do you expect them to pay with a company shares and leave a business card? But your android is clever. You can add two and two yourself." the boss lady tells.
Eric tosses the datapad aside Kasatha Dame Tannhauser. I believe the term for what the Human is displaying is..."playing coy". It is a most illogical and faulty method of communication. Please Human. Do not have us place you in the tender cares of Vesk Boreal Typhon. and then EH-RK says I believe that method of communication is known as a " veiled threat".
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Given more than a few seconds to her own devices, Allison has annexed four other monitors for her own usage, and she types with the speed of an elite-level programmer mixed with an epileptic house cat. At some point she must have connected her hacking kit to the lady's unit, but no one can remember when.
"I'll start copying her files in case the--erm, our employer wants to see them, to prove that we, like, did stuff, an stuff," she says, her continued actions a blur of movement and data streams.
"Tell her is she doesn't start talking Imma just set all her prices on booze to 'free' and it'll take her a month to get her inner systems unwound.
Okay, I may do that anyway. But I haven't yet, so that's something."
"No, I'm coy. She's just being sarcastic." Tannhäuser corrects.
"Veiled threat is correct though."
"And I'm good at it. Aren't I?" the boss lady retorts. "Getting handled by that lizard? Thank you, but no thank you. As you are not as clever as you look I will spell it out for you."
Sighing and taking a deep breath she explains. "If there is a job to be done someone pays the price and names a target. If that one isn't totally stupid, then you'll never find out who is behind that. At least not in a way that counts as evidence. And I won't ask for sure."
"But if it is all over the news that the Hardscrabble Collective is in a clinch with Astral Extractions over the Acreon. And one of the guys meddling in that against the big corporation suddenly turns dead? Then someone with quite some money got annoyed by him and paid to get him out of the way. It doesn't get much clearer than that. Feel free to go and ask Astral Extractions yourself if they are behind that."
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"And I'm good at it. Aren't I?" the boss lady retorts.
Tannhäuser raises her hand and rocks it in a so-so fashion.
While this is going on Boreal is accessing warrants for arrest "What is her name?" she asks the room in general
Indeed Kasatha Dame Tannhauser. I will update my biologic communicative mode drivers. Thank you for the additional data points.
and then to the Human I believe that the Vesk Boreal Typhon would like to know by what name you wish to be known. It would also fill in a missing part of my data files as well. Proceed.
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While this is going on, Wraith starts copping all the bar's financial records. This might take a tic. While that is happening she stands up and sighs. "Ugh. I can't believe you people. This is twice!"
She gets up and policies up the bodies and the one prisoner, gathering credsticks and guns and anything else valuable. She dumps them into a her ruck and then goes back to work.
"The name is Nadaz. Ferani Nadaz. And I take my martini shaken, not stirred." Ferani Nadaz replies.
Seems our next stop is either the police with this information... or Astral Extractions? Is that a fight we want to pick?, Manteca says telepathically to the party. He stands otherwise stoic, arms crossed across his chest, at the banter the human female presents.
Trytton pulls any outstanding warrants for Ferani Nadaz, and for any known aliases.
If you don't have that you need to use another computer to enter name and all that by hand. Which comes up empty for Mrs. Nadaz.
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And what do I find for phat loots?
"Aaaaand, she's screwed us," Wraith says, bringing up the sine-waves of the boradcast signal. "She's sent out a broad-wave cast for her whole crew. We got an unknown about of toughs inbound in an unknown amount of time.
We already did murder here, so we're better off making sure there aren't any witnesses." She picks up her hacking kit and stuffs it in her ruck, ready to leave.
"Boreal? Vap them so we can make like a tree and get outa here."
"Aaaaand, she's screwed us," Wraith says, bringing up the sine-waves of the boradcast signal. "She's sent out a broad-wave cast for her whole crew. We got an unknown about of toughs inbound in an unknown amount of time.
We already did murder here, so we're better off making sure there aren't any witnesses." She picks up her hacking kit and stuffs it in her ruck, ready to leave.
"Boreal? Vap them so we can make like a tree and get outa here."
"Or maybe our new friend here could send a second message to all her friends saying to turn around and go home. I can't imagine her pride is worth dying in an even bigger shoot-out - especially since she doesn't have anything we need any more. Batteries are expensive, after all." The shirren pats the pistol in his pocket meaningfully.
"You know what? You got all you wanted. That is when you didn't mess up and forgot to ask for 'the real thing'. And all this talking cost you a lot of time. How much time was it, Miss computer hacker?" Nadaz tells.
"So you can choose now. You take what you got and take to your heels and never show up again in the lower levels. Or you'll pretty soon find out how many the Downside Kings are. I'll give you a hint: It's pretty full in the club on our new years party. I'm not going to be the only one to die here, that's for sure. So f*@@ off or die. Your choice."
She makes a certain point, the shirren thinks to rest of the group. He moves to follow Allison out of the club... but will stop behind the bar to grab a bottle of something nice as spoils of war.