The suitcase contained more delicious products from your great company. Dehydrated miso, Ramen-in-a-cup, things like that. Also, a copy of the "Insider Weekly", concerning a smear job completed on Makita Genetics. No names were given, but the article was dripping with smugness, suggesting the author actually had something to do with the job. Also in the magazine, an update on the top men in the twelve highest grossing zaibatsu; promotional pages; and the reviews of the newest stimstims by both Makarov and Katsura punctuated by vividly coloured snapshots of both stars.

(OOC- you can wing the dinner and discuss your approach to the mission there. When erady, post in Mission Three. You can ask for more info, or create some yourself while the mission hasn't started yet.)

Kimihiko shows up at the diner.  Once everyone has arrived he speaks quietly, "The next job sounds troublesome.  Lots of unknown variables.  Any idea how we should do this?"

Inuro showed up changed into a more casual pair of slacks and silk shirt, along with a leather jacket to finish his "obvious knock off designer casual" look.

He had ordered a coffee and was flipping through a copy of the stack of info from the disc on his own deck.

"Well it would be easier to just grab her in town or somewhere else away from the school building rather than try sneaking in and bringing her back out."

After a moment he looked to Nomura and asked, "Think you could get into the student files at the school and get a copy of her schedule or something?  Might be she has some club or activity that would work, or maybe she's been disciplined for staying out past curfew on free days or sneaking out or something."

The student roster and hours plan was already provided. The young miss seemed to be a model student - no punishments on record. She was even credited with helping out at the local hospital once a month.

Then again, you were all too aware of how easily such records can be manipulated to taste.

      Jenkins slunk into the diner, his eyes casting around the place.  He had something bulky and flat under his arm, which, unfolding it as he sat on the plastic chair, turned out to be an old deck of retro design (from back when retro decks were 'in'), looking like a 20Cth 'lap-top', complete with attached, folding screen and realistic 'hum' sound.  He listened to Nomura and Rin as they began the meeting and ordered a sextuple-shot mocha-mocha-espressachino.

      "I was thinking about this stuff in the car.  This kidnap move being standard practice, this Hiro bloke is going to expect kidnap attempts.  Perhaps its even 'polite' for kidnap attempts to be made and to fail.

      The coffee arrives (a pint of frothing caffeinated madness in a glass).  Jenkins gulps down half in one unrefined chug.

      "Little Mai.  She's going to be heavily guarded if kidnaps are expected.  If she isn't heavily guarded, then maybe they want the kidnap to work and the girl isn't the girl, but a clone with a bomb, or one of those one-two-oh cyborgs, ready to get busy.  Makes me wonder whether we're actually meant to succeed here or if we're simply a polite gesture between two Zaibatsu, or the decoy, luring Oshima out into the open while a second team does the real work.  Still, 'ours is not to reason why'.  Certainly be worth being careful and checking some of those "unknown variables" on location."

      Jenkins picks-up the Insider Weekly and flicks through, turning the pages quickly.


OOC:

Some speculation, thoughts and questions.

     -  What has Munemori Hiro been doing before his promotion (or demotion) to branch director?  That might be useful to know: gives a sense of whether kidnapping will come as a surpise to him and whether he's been moved to this job as a punishment, or as a trouble-shooter in a stagnant branch of the corporation.
     - What's the security like at the hospital?  It might be an opportunity, if the report is correct.  The private school is likely to have pretty good security if kidnapping sons and daughters is standard business practice.  Then again, it might not.
     - Hmmm.  I wonder what the copy of 'insider weekly' in the suitcase signifies?  'Ugly' did tell us to take the suitcase with us, but that's ambiguous.  Maybe it was an insult left over from the last mission; maybe Makita had been after some other suitcase and we were running a dummy suitcase with this magazine inside to tell Makita (if they'd got it) that they'd got a dummy?  Perhaps the contents of the real suitcase were connected to the smear job?  Is this the latest issue, or a back-issue?  Then again, 'sometimes a cigar is just a cigar'.  Still, food for thought.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:05, Mon 29 Aug 2011.

Agent frowned slightly, "Over-thinking this is dangerous. We are given a job. We do the job."
A bacon-and-egg sandwich was procured, along with a thick sim-malted milk, and Agent sipped through a straw before speaking again, "A direct snatch will alert security. Attacking or disabling security will alert the target. Best option, assumedly, is to set up something to take out security the moment they're alerted. Gain information on security. Are they immune to drugging?"

Kimihiko ordered breakfast and a coffee.  "I agree with Agent 19, if we begin to suspect every job is a setup we'll quickly go crazy.  Or our boss will notice our suspicious behavior and think we are the ones betraying him.  I could look and see what there is on him, but if I get caught it would look very bad for us."

He stopped talking when his food and drink arrived, waited until the woman was out of earshot, then continued.

"Does the file say anything about the school's defenses?  Do we know if this girl is carrying a weapon?"

Inuro began checking for the info Nomura asked about and considered what Agent 19 said.  "Can you check and see if Oshima handles its own executive security or if it uses a service?"  He asked of the hacker.

"Might let us know more about what we're going to have to be dealing with."

Jenkins reached the last page of the magazine and popped it down on the table before chugging back the rest of his coffee and ordering another.

Kimihiko nodded, "I should be able to find that out pretty quickly.  Possibly it's a subsidiary of the parent company rather than an independent contractor, but you never know."

He wasn't sure if pulling his deck out right now would be acceptable.  In any case, he wanted to hear the rest of the conversation first.

Jenkins was a bit late to the meeting, owing to the fact that he triplechecked his car for unfair play. Be it as it may, once the insulated cup brimming with steaming coffee was in his hands he calmed considerably.

Munemori Hiro, being a veteran of the business world, was surely always prepared for business moves such as the one you've been ordered to make. This might make you wonder about the choice of school for his daughter (A small private campus not renowned for anything? Hmm.) Otherwise, his service record is mostly spotless; he climbed the corporate rungs at a slow but steady pace, and there were no major scandals associated with him.

The security at the town's general hospital was nothing special. A few watchmen, a centralized video surveillance system, fire alarms. The police station was a few blocks away. Nothing special about the plans or staff of the hospital. There were a dozen ambulances always parked in the driveway, stocked and ready to respond.

The security detailed in your report consists of two drivers, also trained as bodyguards, who take shifts hanging around near the girl. It seems she wasn't overly fond of having gorillas around her. The current pair has been driving her around for the last two months, but that was all you had on them. The car itself is an armored Maybach, two tonnes and five hundred horsepower of black metal.

Digging deeper into Oshima's security revealed that they mostly used their own black ops teams. It was considered a relatively safe job, and many took it when they need a breather from too many close shaves and near death experiences. It was probably safe to assume that the two bodyguards were probably cybered-up veterans.

Kimihiko whistles quietly, "I hope some of you are good fighters.  If she will be appearing at the hospital soon that seems to be the best way to get to her since the school seems suspiciously unimpressive.  I'm not sure how useful hacking the school's computer would be, the best I can think of is using it to summon the target to our location.  Otherwise we're looking at either infiltrating the campus and grabbing her, waiting until she goes off campus and grabbing her, or getting her at the hospital.  Each case we'll be dealing with at least one bodyguard and whatever tricks she might have up her sleeve."

Kimihiko could rig something up, perhaps set up an observation net, but they had her schedule.  He wasn't sure how much help hacking the matrix would be either.

         Jenkins was enjoying the buzz from the coffee and rested his chin on his hands and his elbows on the table.

         "The hospital is the key: a nice public building with low security and lots of people coming and going.  The police are nearby, so it would be better not to set off any alarms."

         He turns to Kimihiko and smiles.

         "Do you think you could hack Oshima's HR department and mess with the guards' schedule: invent two fake Oshima secuity personel and slip them into the system before assigning them to guard duty.  Then two of us can turn up as her security for the day and invent some sort of security threat to get her out of the building and into an ambulance or something before anyone gets wise.  Either that or they're waiting for us with extreme force."

Slipping into the security database of a big zaibatsu was difficult enough; actually changing something and having it seem legit was really, really hard. Then again, that's what deck cowboys were for, right? Taking their chances with black ICE and tracers...

"If 19 thinks she can take one of these guys, with a little help from us that is, we could always see about having the girl meet us for lunch.  Set up an unexpected  surprise visit from dear father.  Though we'd need some recorded clips of dad's voice to work off of."  Inuro suggested.

"Would help us avoid both the school security and the hospital's.  But depending on the relationship between father and daughter it might raise suspicion of it's too out of character.  But might also work like a charm."

"Give me accurate employment and background data on her security guards, and I will tell you whether I can 'take them'."

Kimihiko thinks that hacking the corporate infosphere would be extremely risky.  But, it would also help the team immensely if he could succeed.  On the other hand, it could tip off their target and her protectors.

"I will give it a try if you all think it's worth the risk.  Tough if I fail we might have a harder job ahead of us."

As for the guards' data, that might be a bit easier.  He was willing to give that a shot.
This message was last edited by the player at 07:31, Mon 05 Sept 2011.

A standard Go-to on the guards yielded... nothing. No social insurance, no driver's licence, nothing. It was as if they left no trail in the real world at all prior to this assignment. Not even their names were listed in the capsule hotel where they stayed - the capsules were listed as rented by the corporation.

    "The folks at Oshima don't want hackers to know about their black-ops people.  Never mind.  Likely a part of the contract for black-ops.  They do the dirty-work and Oshima gives them a low profile.  Either that or maybe they have no identity: maybe these are lab-grown thugs? ... Did you say 'Capsule Hotel'?  Did you say 'are they immune to drugging'?  Drugging.  Nice."

     Jenkins leaned back in his chair and rubbed his 5 O'clock shadow.  "Knowing where their hotel is is a useful piece of information.  Neutralising them before they get to work might be handy, but it may also give the game away too early in the day.  Would be a good opportunity to see whether they're 'immune to drugging': dose their morning coffee (or steroids) and see what happens.  An experiment: just see if they get sleepy.

     "The trap needs to be sprung just before the critical board-meeting: it gives Pappy no time to think it over or come looking for us.  We've got some good ideas.  What we need to do is spend the time we have watching and developing a water-tight plan based on good intelligence.  We need to figure out how to neutralise the heavies without raising the alarm, nab Mai at the right time and keep anyone from finding Mai until after the meeting (all that disguised voices down the phone and 'do you know where your children are' stuff).  Hang about..."

     Jenkins clicked his fingers.  "Here's one: we find some out-of-the-way room in the hospital and ask Mai to go there using the hospital tannoy (meanwhile, whoever is messing with hospital security switches the tape on that camera feed).  When she and the muscle arrive in the room, we gas them: knock them out, keep them knocked out.  We do ourselves up like doctors and Mai like a patient (checking for chips and tracers and stuff).  We get Mai to a get-away ambulance on a stretcher.  We leave the thug where he is with a big dose of nighty-night and a ranson-note in his pocket.  We drive off and switch cars a few times.  Get to the safe-house (one that's actually safe).  We wait for Daddy to make the right call and then arrange for Mai to turn up somewhere with a whole pack of scrummy noodles, compliments of our glorious employers."

Inuro nodded.

"We'd need to know how easy security at the hospital is, and if she has a set day she volunteers.  Still, since it's only once a month might put it too far down the road for that to work.  But it's a line worth pursuing."

"Let's just assume the bodyguard is going to be along the same lines as what Yoshiko uses.  Lets also assume we have to take one out, or at least slow them down enough for us to get away.  I've got some knock out shots for my pistol, might slow him or her down a bit, but might be a bit on the loud side.  If we do this in the hospital we'll need to be hush hush, or right next to an exit and the waiting car."

"We arrange a time and place where we know she and her yojimbo are going to be, we can set up an intercept, do a smash and grab.  Messy, but quick and more flexibility in case things go wrong."

"We do the hospital, might be tighter, less chance of things going badly, but requires more planning, and might get really messy if something doesn't go according to the plan."

"I say we check out and plan for both, see which one is more likely to work once we've gotten some details sorted out."  Inuro concluded, then looked to the others for their opinions.

      Jenkins nodded his approval.  "We see what's going on and choose the best plan.  Can't argue with that."

"Sounds good."  Kimihiko waited to see if anyone else wanted to say anything, then got up to leave.

Inuro nodded in reply to the two positive affirmations.

"Nomura, see what you can find out about the hospital, their security, floor plans, staff list, and what days our soon to be new friend volunteers there."

"Jenkins, see what you can come up with for an easy out from the hospital and see what sort of routes we can get between there and the safe house.  Also pick out a trendy cafe or something in town that has good escape routes from that Mr. Munemori  might invite his daughter to for an impromptu lunch or snack.  That will be the center location for our second plan."

"Nineteen, see what you can come up with to take out or disable the bodyguard if you think what we've got between us won't be enough.  Might be able to get a line on something from our dear employers if they want this job to actually succeed."

"I'm going to see what sorts of info I can pull on Mr. Munemori, see if I can get down a good impression of him to give us our second option."

"Good?"

Once everything passes muster, Inuro will begin making his own exit.

Kimihiko nodded and would get right on his task.  The plan(s) sounded solid, this girl was a valuable asset and their futures depending on not screwing this job up.  Killing the bodyguard might break some unspoken rule, but he doubted the bodyguard would've thought twice about neutralizing them.

Agent was lost in thought for a moment, then spoke. Oddly, her voice seemed... Like it wasn't hers. More as if some other voice had taken over for her.
"The security will be protected against drugging, but within a hospital they will need to obey protocol. If we can hack a file, as well as putting virus or radioactive trace-elements on their skin, via discrete spray, they can be locked down in quarantine. If they cause a fuss, hospital security will deal with them. If they barrel through hospital security, then Agent can confront them as a 'concerned citizen'. QED."