"We were after a rigger. That's a dead rigger. Surprised they didn't have a real guard or two on this guy. Might not be the right one. We could ring and see how the chrome domes are doing. I just want "
Jay approaches the body and gear carefully. He looks around for anything he can recognize , especially live cameras or mics.
Figment says, "Reckon it'd be more to tell 'em the good news, if they're in a firefight. Meanwhile, I'm thinkin' we got at least two dobermans and a remote-control deck to take with us.... Shoulda rented a cube van..."
"Or do we just take what we want and call it in? They can come by and collect the body if they want."
" I fear your friend's services will consume any profit we might reap from this biz. But we have few options, especially if we wish to take our spoils."
Jay eyes the rigger's expensive looking equipment and contemplates a long slog to wherever.
Figment shrugs, "Assuming they survive, I reckon there's enough gear here to help 'em rebuild. Splittin' it with 'em would probably make 'em pretty darn happy with us, even if they're not likely to be in the best o' moods this evening."
He says, "Too bad none of us got a rig. Figure he's probably already sent out some sort of flyer, which'll just crash and make some street kids happy."
"Maybe we could use the tank downstairs as a mule, or at least a shopping cart to carry stuff."
Jat returns to his perusal of the loot.
Figment nods, "Well, we ain't got a Rig to let us leap in and drive, but drones all got autopilot. I reckon I - or anyone with a jack - could plug into the dead guy's remote deck - which is on the right channels and has the right codes - to send commands to the drones and have them drive themselves some place... Might even be able to recall whatever's in the air, now that you got me thinkin' of it."
He smiles, then it fades a little, "It'd be clumsy as all heck, as the computers in them things are dumber than an inbred dog. But, still, should be doable, if we don't run into nothin' bad. On the plus side, the drones themselves are the heaviest and most valuable things... On the downside, if they run into any trouble, that's probably not good. I'd feel better if we could camo 'em up so nobody sees combat or recon drones driving by and reacts badly."
"The triad's gonna tumble to the loss of their rigger cause their drones have gone braindead. Whatever we do it's got to be fast. "
”Trying to take too much invites trouble. Let’s stick with what we can carry,” Raptor suggests. Leaving the tech to others to evaluate, Raptor looks for any weapons that may be around.
"Okay." Jay acquiesces instantly to Raptor's suggestion. "Now what?" He begins to root around the gear on the roof. "Can we recall the drones?"
Figment nods, "Remote deck's still workin' and has a ride-along port I can plug inta. Since he was tryin' to kill us with the drones, it's still active on the network - won't need to hack it. I can just issue a recall order to everything as if I were him."
Danny's got the deck, so Jay turns to the two bodies and goes through their pockets and gear. The scrip, bills and credstick go into a vest pocket. He strips off the bodyguard's gunbelt and fastens it around his waist under his own overcoat. The microtransceiver goes into his ear. He picks up the Defiance and looks it over appraisingly.
Raptor focuses on the bodyguard while others check the rigger and his gear.
Jay uses the shotgun as a prop to level himself to his feet. "Let's blow this pop stand."
Raptor nods in agreement and moves back toward the fire escape.
Jay follows.
Taking what they can carry, the group heads back to their bikes, with Figment chuckling, "Reckon some kids are going to have a pretty big find when they're playin' tomorrow mornin'... hope they can trade 'em for something good."
He pauses, then asks, "Ok, guess we need to call Jay's ride again once we're away, since we left our bikes back at the lot to avoid needing to do more than one run."
Figment laughs, "Right, Glassy's pal, sorry. Guess I'm still thinkin' about kids selling drones for candy."
"Summon the conveyor and let's be off."
"Good idea. It might keep the local youth out of trouble too."
Lev says, "Sure, I'm still not too far away chummer, I'll be back. More than happy to do it for one of them Dobermans... 'bout time you do something to even the fragging scales.... Heck, I'll even give you back the nuyen for the trip in."
One drone and a bunch of runners get into a van -- about six blocks away from the rooftop -- and head out into the night.
"So, now that I see this is real, I guess only question is... where'm I dropping you? Back at your bikes?"
Jay frowns, then shrugs. "I've got a place on the edge of Auburn and Puyallup. It's small but the neighbors mostly mind their own business. Should be secure enough. We could swing by the bikes, then go there. "
It's a bit of a drive, but you all head out to Jay's safehouse to regroup, look at your toys and plan next steps.
Lev drives south, then turns east into Auburn through a warehouse district, row on file of looming steel-framed, sheetmetal-skinned parallelpipeds surrounded by chain link mail surmounted by red and white badges of warning and corporate fealty. A few blocks in a silver armored patrol car swings out of an alley and tails the van for a few blocks before peeling off, only to quickly replaced with a blue and white. "That's a horse of a different color," your coachman mutters.
The white and blue hands off to a stereotypical basic black with mirrored windscreens the plays a searchlight over the back of the van. Another few blocks and the basic black fades away when the neighborhood transitions to residential.
These are the homes of workers in the warehouses and factories of Auburn. Many tenements, in green-crete, some older in red brick, and sandwiched between them a few proudly ancient wood-framed multi-family Victorians. Lev stops in front of a Soba shop. Jay urges everyone to get out quickly and start moving east down the sidewalk. He stays behind to pay Lev with the credstick and ask him for a number. He watches the van pull away, then hurries to the front of the group.
We walk a block and a half until we reach a weathered gray Victorian. "I've got the garret. It's small but at least it will be dry."
Jay looks east toward the false dawn. "The noodle shop will be open in about an hour."
A flight of nine granite slab stairs rises from the street to the front porch. The double door is steel, with a palm-sized window and three heavy built-in locks. It's obviously a retrofit, but the grimy stain glass transom window above survives from the original construction. Jay produces a faintly jingling set of keys and and unlocks them from top to bottom.
Inside a narrow set of stair climbs and turns to the next floor. Beside the stairs a short hallway leads to the first floor apartment door. "Shoes off here, please. We don't want to wake Luis."
Jay follows his own instruction, then leads the way to the second floor where the hallway wraps toward the front of the house and another flight up to the garret. One key opens the door at the top of the stairs.
The apartment inside is huddled under the roof. It's only about half the width of the house and the only place one can stand full height is within a few feet of the roof ridgeline. The door opens into a bare living room . Next moving toward the rear of the house is the kitchen. An awkward bathroom is sandwiched between the two on the left hand side. The bedroom is all way the back.
Furnishings are extremely sparse. A futon couch in the living room. A real wooden table with three chairs in the kitchen. Another futon on a low platform in the bedroom, a set of shelves with a few clothes and the fourth kitchen chair round out the bedroom.
It's not gleaming, but is relatively dust-free.
Figment takes a look about, then nods, "Ok, so nothing but clean searches from here, to avoid bringing any new friends to your location. Might want to take a little walk to see if there's a junction I can hook into .. unless there's a neighbour or shop nearby that you don't mind having a chat with the Star.. or Corp Sec. Or whomever."
He then shrugs, "A'course, that assumes I have a target and something to look for. Reckon all we got now is to wait and hope we did enough that Guardian's friends survived their night."
”Yeah, it’s on them now,” Raptor says, uneasily taking a seat in a kitchen chair.
Danny takes off a substantial pair of boots off as he enters, then follows Jay up to the garret, putting down the drone with a sigh of relief. "Man, that was a long night"
"It was at that. 0nyx, why don't you take the bedroom? I'm for the shower first. Sorry there's no food to speak of, but the noodle shop will be open soon."
Figment takes a look about, then nods, "Ok, so nothing but clean searches from here, to avoid bringing any new friends to your location. Might want to take a little walk to see if there's a junction I can hook into .. unless there's a neighbour or shop nearby that you don't mind having a chat with the Star.. or Corp Sec. Or whomever."
He then shrugs, "A'course, that assumes I have a target and something to look for. Reckon all we got now is to wait and hope we did enough that Guardian's friends survived their night."
"Tight friends are a resource sadly lacking here. The local populace mostly wishes to avoid any -- entanglements. They'll mind their own business, but they won't guard mine.
Discretion is only wisdom."
”Yeah, it’s on them now,” Raptor says, uneasily taking a seat in a kitchen chair.
"I sincerely hope they made it."
Jay gathers some clothes and a hangar from the bedroom shelves. He unloads his overcoat. The weapons go on the kitchen table. The coat is carefully arranged on the hangar and strung on a long line that runs along the roof peak in the kitchen.
His personal effects go into the pockets of a waist-long windbreaker. He disappears with that and the other clothes into the bathroom. He's in there a long time, even after the shower stops running. When he emerges he's clean shaven, his hair spiked up with gel, and he's dressed in light fatigues, a navy long-sleeve T-shirt, wool socks and the windbreaker.
"Shower should be recuperating. I'm going to catch some sleep. Then I'll make some calls."
Jay grabs a pillow and stretches out on his back on the rug.
Raptor sheds his bulky coat, and begins peeling off an entire arsenal of weaponry concealed beneath. By the time he is finished, the table is nearly covered. "Don't mind me. I can sleep anywhere."
Jay wakes up at the crack of noon. He pulls on some work pants, a long sleeve, synthetic t-shirt, and a work shirt. He steps over and around the other sleepers, on his way to the kitchen. He gently pinches the lower sleeve of his overcoat, and frowns. He pulls out the paper balls that he'd stuffed into the toes of his shoes last night and pushes his fingers into the toes. Another frown.
Then he pours a glass of water from the faucet and downs that while he stares at the pile of things on the kitchen table. He shakes his head, then gathers his personal goods from the table top into his pockets. Then he does a quick review of the largely empty cupboards. He knows the refrigerator is empty, but he opens it to turn the temperature down.
After winding his way through the sleepers to the front door, he pulls a short, heavy windbreaker, and some work boots from a small closet. His knife and derringer go into the outer jacket waist pockets.
He descends the stairs to forage breakfast from the soba shop and returns laden with a large bag.
Again winding through, over and around the sleepers, he deposits the bag on the kitchen counter. He unwraps the cord wrapped around a nail in the upper frame of the kitchen window, so that he can lower the shade about halfway to let in sunlight. Then he wraps the string back around the nail.
He looks at the bedroom door for a few minutes, then at the men in the living room. He pulls a paper package out of the bag, then drapes a towel over the bag as insulation. The paper package is unrolled to reveal a mass of thin strips of pink and white. The bacon is carefully seperated and dropped into a frying pan over low heat.
Figment jolts up, "What am -- is that bacon? Like, real bacon, and not Smoked Soystrips? Or that weird hybrid one that's got a few flakes of ham to give it flavour?" He whistles, "Well, I'm feelin' right spoilt."
”Something something bringing home the bacon,” Raptor says with a broad grin. He pulls up his massive frame from where he was sprawled out. ”That smells good.”
While the bacon cooks, he takes an open spot and begins going through a series of martial arts forms, stretching his body and working out the kinks of an uneasy sleep.
Figment shrugs, "Figured you could magic that. Knew a cat shaman once, insisted on always been clean.. I swear, he cast spells to freshen himself up at least every other minute. Didn't go well in terms of being able to sneak into places, really." He shakes his head, "But, yeah, might be time to check in on our friends."
Figment laughs, "Well, I'm reckon there probably are spells that lick a body... and, you're right, he'd be that kind of person."
He sobers, "I can go take a look in the shadowy corners of the matrix to see what people are saying.. or asking about."
”Yeah. A fixer might have an ear to the ground, but I don’t know that we want to bring in anyone like that at this point,” Raptor says in between slurping his noodles.
Danny wakes up shortly afterwards, having slept in his clothes, then gets up and walks to the kitchen. "Hey, man.", he says to Jay. "You mind if I make tea?
"Don't think I've got any. There's some instant coffee in the cupboard over there."
A search will reveal no tea, half a tin of instant coffee so old it's sintered into a single mass.
Figment jolts up, "What am -- is that bacon? Like, real bacon, and not Smoked Soystrips? Or that weird hybrid one that's got a few flakes of ham to give it flavour?" He whistles, "Well, I'm feelin' right spoilt."
"It's the secret ingredient in the Sunrise Soba Bowl. I've got a deal with one of the cooks."
”Yeah. A fixer might have an ear to the ground, but I don’t know that we want to bring in anyone like that at this point,” Raptor says in between slurping his noodles.
"What have you got then? We got to ask around. Figment could get rumbled doing his thing. No offense, big guy, things happen sometimes. I know a couple guys. We could play it like we're buyers. What'dya think?"