"You don't see the family resemblance?" Raptor says with a straight face.
"No." Jay deadpans right back. Then he smiles just a little. "But my sister doesn't look like me either."
More soberly, "How can I help?"
"I can do that."
Figment and Onyx move up and around the awning before getting close to the building and pressing against it, with Raptor following closely.
Jay steps lightly over to a street-lamp stanchion. The lamp itself is long ago shot-out, and droops from the twisted cantilever. He puts his shoulder to the stanchion and watches 0nyx and Figment (and Raptor, and Danny?) make their approach. He glances behind himself to check the street periodically.
The borrowed sub machine gun held in his right hand is half-hidden, pressed against his chest under his overcoat.
Onyx sneaks past the garage door without incident, noting that the small windows have been blacked out -- and what was once a glass door beside them has been replaced with dark blue soyplast that's not quite opaque enough to block the light from within. As before, Raptor and Figment follow on her heels, in case of any trouble.
You cast your spell and feel your magic reach out, some of it bouncing back to you with a sense of awareness of what caused the reflection. There are scores of living creatures -- but pushing away the signatures of cockroaches, then rats -- reduces the number of living things you've detected to ... a dog, about 4 meters away from you, to the northeast, more or less.
Figment nods, "Makes sense. Cheap, reliable alarm, installs quick and generally don't get the neighbours wondrin' what's up. Hope we din't miss our dates, though." He pauses, then says, "How far's the spell go? Maybe they're farther in?"
Raptor grimaces. ”So it would seem.” He hefts his bow.
”Your concern for my well-being is noted,” Raptor says with a smirk as he takes the lead.
Jay glances over at Danny. "Should we follow them?"
Jay grunts a short chuckle. "Ork scout cookies."
You switch vision modes, but the walls are too thick to pick up any heat signatures -- and the windows are only slightly thinner. You see three blobs of heat -- not distinct figures, and too large to be single creatures, even trolls. Knowing about the dog, though, lets you guess that one of the blobs (from its shape) is probably the dog and a human.
You ask the boys to catch and project from your body -- the walls block your sight, but assuredly not your astral body. At the speed of thought, you drift through the wall to take a look. Within the garage, you see 8 figures -- a group of four at a locker near the outside wall, a group of three in a small pit under the hydraulic lift on the far side, and one who seems to be equipping the dog. Nothing seems to have reacted to your presence - yet, at least.
You don't recognize any of these auras as ones that you've seen before. All of the men - and the dog - are in a state of anxiety. The three in the pit look mostly healthy, but you see holes in their auras that would indicate essence loss from cyberware implants -- though you can't quite see where or how much through the slight haze. The four at the locker seem... healthy... well, mostly, sort of... but there's a lingering shadow to their auras as well -- and while you can't quite see what it is , it does seem the same for the four of them. The dog's aura is bright and unblemished, suggesting that the animal is well cared for, despite its emotional state. The brightest aura is the man tending to the dog, his aura alight with the spark of someone who is Awakened.
”I wonder if we could cut off escape from the pit - divide and conquer.”
Figment says, "Sounds like the place to roll a grenade. Unless someone's got a van we could roll over it?"
Jay trails behind Danny, crouched and weaving serpentine. He moves from one bit of cover to the next and turns around often to make sure nothing is sneaking behind him. He stops and huddles by a broken down crate while Danny rounds the far corner of the building ahead of him.
Figment says, "Reckon we'll want a door other than the big bay ones, if we want a chance to catch em by surprise."
Running in a crouch, Jay rounds the corner right behind Danny.
Everyone gathers near the door which has a cheap-looking maglock, with a tap-scanner that was clearly abused, pieces of its casing are missing -- with a crude set of wires running to a very, very old-school numeric pad -- its own casing missing screws and barely hanging on with bonding-tape.
Figment says, "Reckon we can either try t' deke the keypad or cut the wires to it and just send a signal. That last'un'll probably mean this door won't never lock again."