Found Arcana – Chapter 4 IC
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Found Arcana – Chapter 4 IC
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Janet frowned again: “Dangerous mages? I guess I could store it at my save deposit box.
Still, that doesn’t explain who wanted to blow up my gallery. Focus on that for now – the card can certainly be dealt with later.” -
Jawsey sadly shook his head “Do understand that the bombs were only the second most dangerous thing added to your gallery. Think of the card as something like a beaker of HMMV virus — dangerous in its own right, but also of interest to certain people. People who don’t ask nicely, or at all.”
He paced a bit and took an dual-natured look at one of the tendrils again. “I wonder what all trouble it is pulling in? It has already made connections with some of the art, which is disturbing. Possibly taking it to an off-site safety deposit box would keep the gallery safe, although maybe not the bank. But possibly its influence is already in place. Hmmm, let me try one thing first.”
Jawsey lowers himself against a wall, pulls out the blade of his sword cane, and then astrally projects. He manifests so that the others can see what he is doing, then takes a long hard look at the tendril. He both tries to memorize its appearance for future reference as well as trying to make sense out of it. Then he pokes it with his weapon focus. Barry a dramatic reaction he proceeds to see if he can cut off the tendril with his focus.
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AM nods in agreement to Jawsey and then says “Think of why on earth would someone just send it here, it was clearly too hot for that someone.” … then she announces that she needs to work AM seats and her body goes limp as she enters hot simulation again. She hacks the remaining two sensor tags, trying to see if they learn anything useful.
Spoiler: -
Mato keeps watch and makes sure that nobody murders AM and Jawsey while their minds are away.
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Spoiler:
While Janet clearly thought about what AM and Jawsey had told her, AM found the remaining two sensors in the same configuration: One was recording the entrance and one the back alley exit. Neither showed the perpetrator without his mask, but the back alley one had a brief glimpse of a GMC Bulldog parked there – possibly the guy’s ride?
Jawsey’s prodding of the tendril in astral space meanwhile didn’t have any noticeable effect besides making it curl a bit like a smoke ring in a faint breeze.
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Having hacked all the sensors, AM wakes up and says “alright, three sensors one monitoring the entrance, one the gallery one the back exit. I am going to remove them.”, and then she worked on just that.
>> I also got a glimpse of the guys GMC bulldog – or at least I think it is.
Spoiler: -
After AM has found the other sensors, Jawsey points out to Janet “Your gallery has been worked over pretty thoroughly.
It has been compromised by someone, or maybe multiple parties, in at least three ways — sensors, bombs, magic. This is very far from business as usual, your business, your reputation, and likely your life are under threat. We honestly don’t have time to dance around. Our advice is to get this card sold quickly to someone who has the means to isolate it, so that it is neutralized as a threat. Do we have your agreement?“ -
Janet shuddered a bit at the mention: “Alright, alright. Get me that buyer and I’ll get rid of it. Just make sure that masked guy can’t try anything like that again.”
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AM then take out the remaining sensor tags, and pockets them. She cleans the detonators as instructed, and ships a sample of the explosives to Jhonny.
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“OK, I’ll make some calls … ”
A thought suddenly occurred to Jawsey, and it was all that he could do to keep a straight face. He put the thought into an ARO, definitely not wanting to share it with Janet. <<This show was going to pull in the Mafia and Vory, right? And the card was going to be part of the show, even if it isn’t in the catalog. And now we are going to sell the card, pre-show, to someone associated with the Triads. Hopefully Chou never finds out about the provenance, and the others never find where the card went, and most of all that nobody ever ties us to all of that … I’m not saying we don’t call him, we’ve pretty much committed to it now, and I’d rather see the card in Tacoma that next door in Redmond, but just be aware that we are adding another ingredient to an already explosive mix.>>
Jawsey headed back to the back office, confirming with AM that the room was clean of bugs, before he made the call. He felt that Chou was the sort of man who would at least prefer a voice call compared to an ARO. After all the build-up, however, the number took him to an assistant. Jawsey identified the agency he was calling from, and explained “If you would please let Mr. Cheng know that we have came across a collectible of the sort that was involved the last time we did business with him. Due to the deep respect that we hold for Mr. Cheng, we have arranged an opportunity for him to acquire it before it goes to public bidding, should he be interested.”
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“Alright, what’s next?” Mato asks, pleased to be making progress on defusing both the card and the bombs.
“We have a list of people – provided by Janet – to potentially interview. Maybe Jawsey and I can start with that.
“AM thinks she saw the getaway vehicle. A GMC Bulldog is a good start but we’ll need to narrow it down. Can we look for cameras or sensors on that side of the building, or on adjacent buildings – maybe even city sensors – that could provide us more intel?”
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Jawsey let the others know I’ve left a message with Chen’s assistant, hopefully he’ll get back to us soon. Meantime, I’ll do an astral sweep _around_ the gallery, see if there is anyone around there who might have been around at night, who could have seen something. Perhaps it would be worth to look at the street where the van was with physical eyes too, in case they left footsteps or something.>>
Jawsey’s body slumped as his consciousness flew into the astral. Exiting through the back wall, he started sweeping the streets, alleys, and nooks and crannies near the gallery. The part of town was probably too nice for resident squatters, but it would only take minutes to check.
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Mato gives a little sigh at his coworkers who pass out left and right. He knows there’s a reason for it, but they’re just so… vulnerable.
He leaves a message for Jawsey to receive when he gets back, and for AM wherever her brain was at the moment.
<<The motivations here are all muddled.>>
<<Sure, someone might want to off the Italians and Russians at the same time, but why would someone gift this card? As a backup measure in case the bombs failed? As a lynchpin to detonate the bombs? Knowing how rare these cards are, and what they are worth, it’s just such an extravagance. More money will buy you as much Semtex as you want, but these cards are limited, and desirable, and influential.>>
<<Let’s look at the card, the young man with three swords. Claymores, I think they were called. An, oh, claymores are what you call these bombs with ball bearings. Not a coincidence. The card features a young man, just like our portrait in the studio here. He’s being pierced and held up on three sides, just like our two spiky statues and our creepy crucified leather statue that are forming a triangle. The parallels between the card and the art gallery are complete.>>
<<So we either have someone engineering this job with a heightened sense of symbolism OR we have the card manipulating its environment so that what it depicts becomes reality.>>
<<Jawsey, you and Five-Fingers are tight, right? Drop him a line, not to sell the card but looking for information. See what he knows about these cards having a sentience of their own, or an ability to influence those around them. Is he still hard-up or is that just a line he uses when trying to get a bargain? See if ¥300 will loosen his tongue.>>
Message complete, Mato walks toward where AM saw the Bulldog, not really expecting to find anything but going through the checklist all the same.
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AM texts “>>I am working on the bulldog, just let’s get rid of the explosives first. Mato can you take a physical look near the back entrance where I saw the bulldog – there may be some sensors that are not connected to the matrix nearby. Some deckers would miss these sensors. I’ll look in the matrix
still there was nothing to do before Jhonny returned to her with a price and dropoff location. So she disappears again to look for the bulldog.
First, she submerges in hot simulation, and then takes a few breaths closes her eyes, and just enjoys the unfiltered stimuli for a moment. Then she exits the gallery and looks for possible sensors that might have seen the GMC bulldog. ”Spoiler: -
Looking for the GMC as their next clue turned out to be a good idea: not only was there a streetcam nearby up on a three meter high pole slaved to the local R7 traffic host, but also a convenient dumpster on the opposite side of the alley – in which Jawsey found a sleeping bum. A pretty scrawny looking troll to be exact. From the astral it was obvious that the man was both an addict an in poor health – not the best witness, at least if you wanted to bring a story like that to court, but maybe enough to get a lead.
The reply from Cheng came surprisingly fast: <<Do you have a photo of said merchandize?>>
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AM covers her face; she tells Jawsey, “we need invisibility, and levitation – and I can hack the camera directly. The host is too mighty otherwise. She exits the gallery while invisible and follows the team to the 3-meter pole.
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When Jawsey returned to his body he was pleasantly surprised to see that Chen had replied already. Jawsey took a picture of the card and sent it off, mentally crossing his fingers that an offer would come back quickly.
Then he asked Mato to come along and help persuade the troll addict to talk. Nuyen and a charming smile might be all that was needed, but ‘troll’ and ‘addict’ didn’t suggest the most stable possible source, so force might end up being the better option. Jawsey made sure to restore his cane to its normal configuration before heading out of doors, for all that he’d have felt better about rousing the troll with something pointy held between them.
Once outside, he saw what AM was doing. He messaged <<I can cast levitate. Assuming trusting me will be less load on your mind than maintaining the spell would be.>>
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AM nods >> Let’s do it She allows Jawsey to levitate her high enough to connect the universal cable to the camera. Then she begins hacking it, seeking for some more details on the bulldog van.
Spoiler: -
Hacking the camera directly was no problem. It took AM only a few seconds to find the right time frame from last night. There, perfectly on display was the GMC as it was driving away from the gallery, giving her both a plate number and an image of the van: In bold red letters it advertised itself to be a local plumber, specialized in emergency pipe work.
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Once AM has what she wants she feels the need to get back to solid ground. She texts >> Take me down Jawsey. I got it!.
She shares the information she discovered with the team and asks >> Next thing is to try and find an address.Spoiler:
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