Twitch stares at the Johnson in blatant "what the frag" all over his face, "The man eats KITTENS, fragging KITTENS, and then accuses me of being a junkie because I am wanting to use non-lethal ammo?  What is next?" he thinks as he wonders what exactly this job is going to do to his already fragile psyche.  He gets an image in his head of an old video he watched with Cathy once.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnzHtm1jhL4

The doggie bag is brought to Mr. Johnson, still mewling. He stands, "I expect to hear back from you. On Tuesday. Next Tuesday, not this one. ANd don't forget to get that bear!"

With that, he heads out.

A few minutes later, the waiter leaves the bill on the table; 1,878¥.

I finally get manage to get a hold of myself and nearly loose it at the guy putting his pussy in a box. Seems redundant. I wipe the tear out of my eye and look to him as I speak "It sounds to me like you hired yourself some contract workers kind Sir. However, I must state for the record, that I only accept payment in nuyen, in cash or certified cred. VHS tapes and Arbys coupons will not be treated as legal tender." with that he looks to the rest of the lot "Now, we should find a place to get to work. We've got a bear to steal."
This message was last edited by the player at 21:08, Thu 30 Jan 2014.

After the Johnson leaves Twitch picks up his plate and heads back out the way they came.  "Meet you guys out front to discuss the particulars, I need a smoke." he says, sticking his wine bottle his pocket.

"you know what guys," Pants says still sitting at the table, "Its not every day that someone like me gets to enjoy such a posh restaurant.  One of you give me your number and I'll call and meet up with you after I am done here."

Snow pulls out his phone and hits a number, "Jasmine, its me.  Hey I'm having dinner at Ears and the tab is on the J.  why don't you swing by and join me."

hangin up, "No reason to let a perfectly good table go to waste, especially when there is a beautiful women to share it with."

Carver mops up the last of his MRE with some of the table arrangement (mostly the fresher leafy greens), grunts and pulls out a deck of 3x5 index cards. "I've got a warehouse for runs. Meet me here, show this card to the guard, tell him Malory sent you. He'll show you to a warehouse. Thank him, and walk over to the next warehouse down, away from the gate." He scrawls out an address and a gate access code, and shuffles out the drying ink to each of you.

If Twitch leaves before the cards go out, Carver will excuse himself from the table, leave the rented jacket with the doorman and keep Twitch company. "Here's my hideaway. Instructions on the card." He pulls out an ink-black case of cigarettes, and taps one out for Twitch,"Ono-Sendai's. My treat," He makes a cough of a laugh, "Doctor's orders."
The cigarette smoke skitters out his nostrils and mixes with the incoming Seattle rain. He watches the crowds for a minute or two, tasting the nicotine mix with the smell of sweat and cash, before he stubs it out on his boot and scuttles over to his powdered-avocado green two-stroke scooter.
It's difficult as hell looking cool on a scooter while wearing a bicycle helmet plastered with biologically improbable red daisy stickers smeared across it, but damn he tries.

upon seeing the scooter, Twitch brightens up a little bit, "Decent little putput you got there, " as he spews technical data about the scooter he looks it over, breaking off the filter of the cigarette and lighting it up, "Um, I can't tell the address here?" he asks showing Carver the card and pointing to an unintelligible part.  The rain pouring down isn't helping the poor card but somehow Twitch manages to avoid every kamikazi drop heading for his smoke.

After impatiently waiting for a few people to get out of his way, Saint Velveteen ungracefully freed himself from the far back corner of the table.  With a little salute to Snow he said, "thanks for the grub, Fancypants.  See ya round."  Then before anyone remaining could suggest he pitch in for the tab, St. V made a b-line for the exit.

After removing his suit coat (adding some fresh rips in the process), he examined the card the Doc gave him.  "Sure does write like a doc..." he mumbled.  He wasn't sure if he got all the words and/or numbers deciphered, but he would figure it out later.

Once he stepped out into the rain, Saint Velveteen popped up his collar and stuck his hands deep into his pockets and started the long walk home.  Or at least, the place that passed for home nowadays.  He would need to grab the rest of his gear.

"Yeah, it's my little TukTuk. High quality Malaysian recycled aluminum and scrap." He pats the handlebar lovingly and a rearvier mirror snaps and falls to the pavement. "It's ok, I have extras."
Carver leans closer to read the card where Twitch is pointing. "Oh, I must've used that when I was practicing my 'Q's in Or'zet. If you don't have your own wheels I'll give you a lift." He gives Twitch the option of either a non-cursive new card, or a 1960's style crash helmet and the back end of the seat.

Firefox accepted the proffered card, glanced at it briefly, then passed it back.

"What time?"

She made polite conversation with the dwindling team as she finished her salad and a single glass of the wine.  She finished before the arrival of Snow's date.

"A word of advice.  Mr. "F" doesn't think he's paying.  I'm going to see what I can do about this with management, but if you start running up too big a tab, they may re-think whatever arrangement I come to.

Have fun with your girl and I'll see you soon."

As she slid back her chair and stood, she gestured to the bottle she'd been enjoying.  "Happy to leave that for the two of you if you wish.  If not, I'll take it.  Shame to have it poured down the drain."

Picking up the bill, she headed back to the kitchen entrance, pigeon-holing the maitre'd.  "There seems the be some confusion as to who is responsible for this.  It is the understanding of myself and my companions that this should be charged to Mr. F's account.  We will discuss with him later whether it shall be debited against the reimbursement for our services.  In any event, it would be unfortunate if this understanding were inaccurate.  Some of my friends are not as familiar with the nuances of etiquette in an establishment such as yours.  It would be a shame if some of your other guests were to be disturbed or injured as a result of a disagreement."

Placing the slip of paper on the wall, she added a 30% tip before passing it to the server and concluding in Sperethiel  "I presume my understanding of the arrangements is accurate?"

quote:

08:15, Today: Firefox rolled 6 successes using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of 5,(6+3)9,4,5,(6+3)9,(6+3)9. Negotiation - bargaining.

Hopefully 3 9s will do it . . .


Negotiations concluded, she contined out the back door, grabbing an appetizer from a waiting plate.  Quite good actually.  She'd consider returning in the future, but serving live cats was a bit much for her taste.

The others seemed to have departed, but her bike was still where she'd left it.  Time to see what she could learn of drop bears from her library before trying to find Carver's warehouse.

Pants is and can be quite friendly and charming while he chats with Firefox while waiting for his date to show.

"Sure, leave the wine," He says, "I don't normally drink on the job but I know she will enjoy it."

---

09:51, Fri 31 Jan 2014: Snow rolled 22 using 5d6 ((6,5,5,5,1)).
During dinner Pants will ask his contact if she know anything about the Idolize show, the hotel the bear is staying in or the security setup.  No need to let time with a contact go to waste.
(no need to RP out my 'date' with a contact)

After Pants' date he has Jasmine give him a lift close to where Carver indicated the should meet up.

Heading inside he follows Carvers directions and joins the team.

"So have we learned anything."

I look over the card, and consider that this is likely a trap. How many people would it take to capture a tiny little bear anyway? Unless its hiding in some tweens collection, it should be pretty easy to spot. I pull out my spell book and take a picture of it, just in case it gets wet or lost. I slide it into my SWEET ROBES and finish my pastry before dropping some lint, buttons, optical chip and 2¥ on the table as a tip.

I walk around the block to the spot I left my GMC Rex. I hit the fob and climb up into the cab. I turn the key to on, and wait for the glow plugs to warm up the engine. I turn the engine over and black smoke and the roar of an un-muffled turbo diesel comes to life. The truck looks like something straight out of mad-max, welded plates and all. Nice thing about a giant armored truck, You can park where ever the frag you want.

I look down over the cab and say "Thats cute." Apparently someone who drives a runabout thought it was a good idea to try and park me in. I sigh put the truck into first gear, turn the wheel to the left hard and pull out. The big truck tears the runabout out of its space in a squeal of tires and black diesel smoke, I pull away and head to the meet with a new battle scar on my battle worn rig.

The maitre'd is a little flustered by Firefox's resistance to paying everything, but a little smoothing and he'll agree to a few concessions, reducing the bill for the party to a mere $600, with the remainder going to Mr. F, or being "included in other costs". As the only people still in the restaurant are Firefox and Pants, that may not be a major coup (plus warlock's contribution). (Firefox can bring the bill to pick on everyone else later if she'd like :P )

Pants calls his contacts. This is information is quite available to anyone for the checking.

UCAS Idolize is the new Pop Show! It's been on the air for 7 seasons, but it's ALL THE RAGE. Every week contestants CONTEST EACH OTHER for who is going to be the NEW UCAS POP STAR UBER-GOD, where he or she will be offered a FOUR-MONTH CONTRACT WITH RMI RECORDS and then promptly NEVER HEARD FROM AGAIN.

Viewership is in the millions, primarily teens and their parents. Tickets to the live studio viewing are available for purchase, but with a long wait list, and far overpriced. Each contestant sings a song, with an instrumental accompaniment and video background he or she pre-selected. While performing, viewers get to cast votes via the matrix, which are then immediately forgotten about because everything is decided by the three judges; lovable Eva Diola, funny-man Lucien Page, and snarky Simone.

UCAS Idolize is produced by U-Luv-It Entertainment, a subsidiary of Mitsuhama.

Love the truck. A man after my own heart. The only bit that tears at me is my own diesel's glow plugs are broken, so I've been hitting it with the heat gun to start it up the past few days. Clearly I need to upgrade. Sorry, these comments have nothing to do with Shadowrun. Carry on.

OOC: Firefox, I'm going to retcon my response to time as "as soon as possible". Carver's leaving now to make sure he gets there first. Unless Warlock does, in which case W's gonna be waiting outside for a little while.

Firefox arches her eyebrow when the maitre'd refuses to transfer the full cost to the Johnson.  However she doesn't really want to waste time.  She does however make a show of igniting her finger and carefully burning away the generous tip before forking over the remaining nuyen.  Snow was going to be on his own to cover his date . . .

Deciding that heading home before the meet was going to take too long, she dialed up Adonna.  "Hi love.  Can you chat with some of your friends with a parabiology background and see what you can dig up about drop bears?"

The Harley rumbles to life between her legs and she smoothly pulls onto Seattle's night streets.

Oops, i also need to retcon. Somehow my mind wasn't working.

If the manager's choice is between $600 bill or a $600 tip, he'd PROBABLY go with the tip. For some reason it didn't register to me that the final number I came up with (about 30% of the bill) is the same amount as what Firefox offered.

But you're welcome to play it any way that is most fun for you.

Adonna picks up, "Of course, dear. I'll email a dossier? Or do you need an interview?"

I'd just as soon not be out the cash

"A dossier for now.  If I need more, I'll let you know.  Thanks as always"

Twitch looks at the helmet and backseat for a second but shakes his head, "If anyone saw me on the back of that I would never hear the end of it." he thinks as he sticks the address into his pocket.  Seeing St. Velveteen walking too he decides to catch up and make small talk, "Hey chummer, how ya doing?"

Since Saint Velveteen stopped under the eave of a store to watch some amusingly terrible driver try to pull out of his parking spot with completely disastrous results, he hadn't made it too far before a familiar voice caught his ear.  Glancing back without breaking his stride, St. V noted it was one of the runners from the meeting.  And the guy was being awfully friendly.  "Twitchy, right?  The subtle talker or whatever?  You need something or is this an actual conversation?"

Velveteen wasn't trying to be rude, but the friendliness from someone he had only just met had thrown him off his guard.  Already he was going through a mental checklist of his possessions to make sure he hadn't been pick pocketed.  However, he quickly reminded himself that this guy was an ally now, and not an adversary. Even if he was going to leave his guard up, he should play nice.  Pulling two of his remaining toothpicks from his pocket, St. Velveteen stuck one between his teeth and held the other out to his fellow runner.  "Toothpick?"

Twitch takes the offered toothpick and begins walking with St. V, "It's Twitch, I just saw you walking and figured we could talk more openly now.  I like to use guns and race bikes." he says.

"Guns are fun," St. V replied.  "I'll show you some of my favorites at the warehouse.  Bikes though, not really my thing.  Hard to find a good helmet to fit over the rugged canvas that is my head."  St. Velveteen glances down at Twitch and takes careful note of how the guy was walking and not riding a motorcycle.  "So what happened?  Lose a race and someone stole your tricycle?"

Twitch scratches his head a bit embarrassed, "Well, no..... I won the race.  The last corner was a drek of a turn and I kinda trashed the bike." he says laughing at himself.

Carver shrugs, hands off the card (after checking to make sure it was legible and in english), and putters down the street. He knows a few back alleys to cut through to make the ride closer to twenty minutes, give or take a devil rat.

The Shenlong warehouse yard is massive, well lit, and extremely organized. The entire lot is based off of a double canal system that leads all the way out into the bay, built wide enough to handle light traffic all the way up to hovercrafts. The warehouses are all squat ugly things, barely two stories of concrete with corrugated aluminum siding slapped on top to make them seem less bunker-like at a casual glance. The entire area is well lit with several dozen security cameras at key overlapping points of view.
After all, it would be poor form for Triads to lose a shipment.

Carver's warehouse only stands out by the large black number painted to its side. The cargo door is massive enough to allow a full sized tractor trailer through, perhaps something a little bigger.

Old Willy Jiang is on watch tonight, rolling up crinkled cigs and stopping in doorways to keep himself out of the rain and a little warm during his rounds.

In reply to warlock4u (msg # 72):

As Jasmine arrives at Ears she sees a particularly conspicuous truck with a particularly bad driver hit another car and then leave.  She quickly takes a picture or two of the scene with her cell phone and then sends to the picture to LSSS to report a hit and run before heading into Ears.

+2 karma to everyone (1 for great introductions, 1 for completing the scene).

$200 bill to Snow for feeding his girlfriend after the deadbeat Johnson and the helpful elf friend have already left.