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"And everything looks to have gone FUBAR he messages Stygge, annoyed at their surveillance having gone awry as he sees Bushwack and Wraith move out, "Let's get the guns and helmets from your vehicle and be ready to back Bushwack and Wraith up in case they need us.

This is too early for the operation, but if things have gone sideways, then we need to be ready. Going in the daylight is a bad idea Ever alert to trouble, he keeps an active eye out as he heads back to the van. This time he wasn't going lightly armed if they had to deal with possibly Ares security and possible Tir troops.

Another fine mess.

Stygge opens the doors at the back of the van and gets all her gear ready. "Reckon each of those choppers dropped off three or four men," she says. Seeing the two men from the diner follow Bushwack, she then adds in a faux-cheerful tone that wouldn't be out of place on a trid for young children: "Uh oh, it's the chiphead brothers!"

There is no way Stygge's letting these guys tail Bushwack - her gut is screaming that they're bad news - but killing people out in the open like this is also a bad idea, so she tries to grab the chiphead brothers' attention and

I'm not sure what roll would fit best here, but this can work for Con or Sneaking.

. While doing so, she gives TS8 an update on her location.

Near Fairground Scone Factory in Puyallup. Check your vehicle and don't be afraid to take the scenic route.

TIME STAMP wrote: //Location: Downtown Puyallup/Seattle Metroplex/UCAS
//Time: <1137:00/2075-01-18> Combat round OVER
//Weather: <Heavy Overcast, Light Snow, 1C, Wind N 8kph, feels like -6C>
//Air Quality: <Monthly Average: Moderate (Yellow), Precipitation pH 2.6>

A NEARBY PARKING LOT
The street doc's reply to Stygge comes quickly: Okay, be cryptic enough. See you when I get there.

She and Shrike move to the van in the parking area next to the diner. It's reasonably full, or not very empty, depending on your mood, so they have a small amount of cover for their actions.

Shrike takes the situation in, reviewing the data and the situation on the ground. He watches Bushwack enter the parking lot. He sees Wraith off to the east of the compound, moving in towards the trailers. The two "chipheads" as Stygge has labeled them, are more or less moving along route with Bushwack. He is not close enough to hear the commotion from the trailers, but his enhanced vision can spot the unit rocking back and forth now.

Alerted by Stygge to the presence of the chipheads, Shrike notices another pair with similar behavior coming down the street towards them, coming from the west. Just normal looking (human) folks, but they move oddly, like a puppet.

Stygge has to hustle a little to catch up to the "original" pair of chipheads. She's not very convincing. But even though her attempt at interaction isn't a COMPLETE disaster, she is still able to gain some interesting insights. First, they are not "zombies" or acting like drones on a limited program, they react to her with intelligence. Second, they are undeterred by her cajoling, responding with sharp, short words: "Go away, now." The "or else" unsaid practically hangs in the air between the pair and Stygge.

But the BTL burnout, in this case Stygge, sees something in their eyes. They are not there. Something about it makes her think of a drone, but with a rigger jumped in.

---

INFO:
What the frag are you going to do now?

Location: Puyallup, Seattle Metroplex
Condition: Ok
Broadcasted SIN: Elisabeth Gibbs (UCAS) <Hidden mode now>

GM wrote:By the time she reaches the trailers, things are starting to happen. She hears shouting in a language she does not know above the whirring and white noise of heavy duty cooling systems. The trailer closest to her starts to shake as violent activity begins inside. Unfortunately, the heat from the internal machinery masks the bodies being tossed about.

Wraith takes a step back, ducking behind something solid to give her some cover as she eyes the trailer; the foxelf draws a deep breath, then activates her sub-vocal mic. "There is some seriously violent activity going on in one of these trailers, and shouting in a language I am not familiar with," she murmurs. "I think I am going to bypass it - someone, or something, is throwing things around hard enough to shake the trailer." Trailing off, Wraith moves to duck beneath the other trailer and out the other side if she does not see anyone beyond, then takes cover once more by the rear wheels.


"I think I can access the fire escape from here. Any objection to my taking a peek inside?"

While Bushwack is jogging to the buildings he pulls down his ski mask, flips out his spur and activates it as a weapon focus.

As he approaches the two doors, he makes a decision.

He takes a shuriken and throws it hard it enough it can lodge itself in the building, he chooses a spot some 3 and a half meter from the ground between the doors
He then climbs the building using the doorframe or windowsill or rain pipe initially and his personally made mini shuriken ledger to go to the second floor to those tinted meeting room windows where he last saw the shade of Mulpa.
He mutters into the commlink "Hold tight, buddy, help is on the way" as large cigar puffs mingle with the cold air.

TIME STAMP wrote: //Location: Downtown Puyallup/Seattle Metroplex/UCAS
//Time: <1138:00/2075-01-18> Combat round OVER
//Weather: <Heavy Overcast, Light Snow, 1C, Wind N 8kph, feels like -6C>
//Air Quality: <Monthly Average: Moderate (Yellow), Precipitation pH 2.6>

OUTSIDE OF A SUSPICIOUS SCONE FACTORY WITH DANGER WRITTEN ALL OVER IT
Bushwack gets to action, launching himself up the building. It takes all his weight and strength and the focus of energy on the spur to shatter the windows. They do shatter into little tiny bits of annealed glass captured between engineered layers of polymer films and microscopic coatings. Very little glass hits the street, but Bushwack careens into the conference room trailing a plume of shards behind him. Comically, there is literally a troll sized hole in the window.

The conference room is empty, however. Peering out the glass walls into the "bull pen" area of the office space, Bushwack doesn't see anything living or moving. The lights are out.

Nearby, Wraith watches the the troll bound up the side of the building and crash in through the glazing. It's an impressive feat, she has seen the plans and the windows are not puny.

Attention brought back to her situation: the fire escape would be an easy maneuver to reach the bottom rung of the stairs, and a quick trip to the clerestory windows. She can see that the stairs lead all the way to the roof, where there is other access to the building.

The movement in the trailer calms down after about a minute. She can make out generic movement sounds, but it's hard to pin anything down.

There should be a powerful smell of baking this close to the building, but Wraith can only barely detect it. Overwhelming though, is the smell of ozone and slightly acrid off gassing of coolant from the machinery on the trailers. She's no expert on bread, but this machinery has clearly been running long enough to almost clear out the factory's only pleasant feature (for a while it's pleasant, if you work there, the smell of baking bread really does get old).

---

INFO:
What the frag are you going to do now?

"Silhouette I'm in the building. 2nd floor conference room. Can you give a location of Mulpa? If you can give me a path on a map avoiding other matrix icons of guns I will think more of you, but I will taken North, South, East, West, Up and Down going through others in a pinch. There are only half a dozen Tir Special Ops around. How bad could it be, really. ?"

Waiting for the answer Bushwack jumps on a the bigtable and holds his lighter lid under the smoke and fire sensor until the fire alarm starts blaring

"They are impressive chummers if they can hear me sneak up on them with this going on he grins.

Muppet Man wrote: ↑Fri Sep 24, 2021 12:37 am She and Shrike move to the van in the parking area next to the diner. It's reasonably full, or not very empty, depending on your mood, so they have a small amount of cover for their actions.

Shrike takes the situation in, reviewing the data and the situation on the ground. He watches Bushwack enter the parking lot. He sees Wraith off to the east of the compound, moving in towards the trailers. The two "chipheads" as Stygge has labeled them, are more or less moving along route with Bushwack. He is not close enough to hear the commotion from the trailers, but his enhanced vision can spot the unit rocking back and forth now.

Alerted by Stygge to the presence of the chipheads, Shrike notices another pair with similar behavior coming down the street towards them, coming from the west. Just normal looking (human) folks, but they move oddly, like a puppet.

Shrike notices the chipheads and swears to himself.

What the frak are these guys? he wonders as things get more complicated, don't look like Tir troops. Do we have another party involved and why are they moving like that? Why can't things go simple for a change?

He leans in and whispers to Stygge as they reach the van.

"We have company as well. Total of four of them, two following us and two following Bushwhack. Not sure we will be able to back up the others unless we deal with these first See if we can get some answers what is going on."

Discreetly, Shrike takes a look at the two coming from the west, trying to spot if they are armed or armoured.


If Stygge opens up the van, Shrike discreetly reaches for his assault rifle, trying to keep it out of sight of any observation; as normal, it was loaded with Gel rounds to avoid unnecessary complications with the Star.


"Wraith, Bushwhack, trailer is moving if you haven't spotted. Bushwhack, you have a tail. Two strangely acting chipheads. Stygge and I have too. Will intercept them and deal with them before coming into assist."

TIME STAMP wrote: //Location: Downtown Puyallup/Seattle Metroplex/UCAS
//Time: <1139:00/2075-01-18> Combat round OVER
//Weather: <Heavy Overcast, Light Snow, 1C, Wind N 8kph, feels like -6C>
//Air Quality: <Monthly Average: Moderate (Yellow), Precipitation pH 2.6>

INSIDE OF A SUSPICIOUS SCONE FACTORY WITH DANGER WRITTEN ALL OVER IT
Modernity. It's a way of thinking, a way of life, the progress of thought from the past to the present and into the future. Everything, from the most mundane and prosaic items to the most esoteric and invisible systems, is subject to the inexorable drive of modernization. To whit, fire suppression systems in buildings are no longer simple affairs of flashing strobes, blaring alarms and a deluge of water. And Bushwack knows this from his experience as an industrial janitor -- cleaning up after a water-suppression system is a nightmare, which is why most buildings have been retrofitted with targeted foaming systems or inert gaseous systems.

Was that the plan? Knowing that an inert gaseous suppression system would not be able to flood a volume with a gaping hole, and that some other secondary system would kick in? Maybe, I think we all hope so, right? Because that's what happens. When Bushwack holds the lighter to the fire detector (it is a combination chemical and visual device) it takes a few seconds, but then the joy of automation takes over. One question though, does a fire suppression system exist within a security spider's web?

If the breaking of the window triggered a silent alarm, few people would be aware of Bushwack. But the fire alarm is extremely loud. Some scientifically tested combination of tones so god awful and horrendous they could wake the dead and probably damage the undead.

Strobes go off, emergency illumination kicks in. The strobes, one in each room, area a device small in the modern world compared to the "bug eye" devices in the 20th and early 21st centuries when such live saving technology was in its infancy. Despite their size, and innocuous form factor when not active, a modern strobe is comprised of high density solid state lighting technology and uses prismatic lenses to amplify the already bright light, the lighting technology allows the strobes to flood the area in a wide lighting spectrum (safety for all meta-types!). Like the alarms, the patterns of light are carefully calculated to be as mentally disturbing as possible without inducing seizure. They make it by a narrow margin, Bushwack feels slightly nauseous as the lights bore into his very soul.

Back to the actual fire suppression: Strategically placed canisters along the supply lines for the inert gas are loaded with a self expanding foam. They are connected to the fire detector system and HVAC sensors. If the fire alarm goes off and the HVAC detects a non-closed volume, the secondary, that is the foam, system is deployed. Right in Bushwack's face. It also puts out the fire (both lighter and cigar). However despite the ignominy of having his head covered in non aqueous self expanding firefighting foam (without chemicals considered by the state of California to cause cancer, probably, maybe), the alarm and strobe keep going off after the fire is gone.

The door to the office is clearly not a fire door, and obviously the fishbowl windows make it even less of a secure area in an emergency, so even though fire doors slam shut and lock in other parts of the building, on this floor, even with the alarms going, Bushwack has clear access to the stair and elevators.

Text flickers across the troll's comm display. Security cameras have been air gapped since my initial intrusion. Secondary passive systems indicate a party used the elevator 98 seconds ago. Only weight and temperature readings are available. Weight of party was 481 kg, elevator maxes at 500kg. They went down. There must be an unrecorded sub basement because they did not stop where the design data shows a stop. There are five individuals in the lobby right now.

OUTSIDE OF A SUSPICIOUS SCONE FACTORY WITH DANGER WRITTEN ALL OVER IT
From her position near the building, Wraith's senses are assaulted more than any of the other runners'. She's not inside, at least. It does not seem like the alarms are going of anywhere besides the office building. The rollicking and rolling trailers calm down, followed by a loud "CLANG", audible even above the other noise.

Wraith knows enough about how the 'Plex works to know that any sort of official fire fighter response is a looooooooooooooooong way out in this part of town. Private contractors might be en route though. There's not enough information to make an informed guess on that front though.


NEARBY THE SUSPICIOUS SCONE FACTORY WITH DANGER WRITTEN ALL OVER IT
Shrike sees the troll go up and into the building. He is too far away to see the flame, but with the big hole in the side of the glazing, he can easily see the strobes go off and hear the alarm. Even a block away it's horrendous.

Pulling his eyes from the building to other areas of interest, Shrike studies the "chipheads". He's no expert on blue collar workers, but comparing all four of these guys, it is apparent that they are all truckers. Probably long haul types. It may be an anecdote, but if they are long haul truckers, they probably have rigger modules. Stygge would probably know all about that, if Shriek asks the rigger.

Other citizens in the area begin to take note of the goings on at the factory. Attention is focused on the strobe. From the side conversations Shrike can over hear, it seems like the majority of people think the strobes or something inside the building caused an explosion. Not a single person mentions anything about leaping trolls.

Stygge also has an interpretation of the situation based on her own knowledge of the sprawl. She would be very surprised if people spend more than five minutes engaged with the "burning" building. So one really cares.

---

INFO:
What the frag are you going to do now?