Clusterfrag

Max nods,

"Yup. Just another day at the office."

The main foyer is thick with smoke, which intermingles strangely with shafts of sunlight from the empty space where the large stained glass window used to be. Doc and Max pick their way through the debris, stepping around small fires and smoldering furniture. They do a quick count of the bodies.

(( In total, there are 20 dead gangers so far. ))

Max blinks hard a shakes his head, cocking it slightly to the side and over his right shoulder toward Doc as if bracing himself for some kind of frontal assault. Wincing, the elf says,

"I'm gonna go ahead and guess that there isn't a murderous monk staring me down right there..."

Doc squints through the dust an debris.

"Drek, that's still happening? Yeah, there's nothing there."

Max nods,

"Figured as much. The lady said this place had some kind of valut. We need to find it."

Val steps through the smoke and crosses the threshhold into the building just in time to hear the exchange. He groans outwardly. For the love of... not again.

Doc nods.

"I saw a couple of stairways leading down when the drones did their recon."

Tyros stalks in from the side entrance, dropping invisibility briefly before making a quick motion with his empty hand (centering) and vanishing once more (improved invisibility, f4, sustaining focus) ((going for more than 2 successes since everyone seemed to see through that)).

That brief moment of visibility is like a snapshot portrait of a man who revels in battle. Blood drips off the armored form slowly, staining red the leather parts of the huge greatcoat. A six and a half foot piece of sharpened steel is held easily in one massive paw of a hand, laying lightly on the troll's shoulder in parade rest, and seems the only part of the man that is clean. The black motorcycle helmet, with tinted visor down, gives a sense of implacability. The way he moves and carries himself, his steps not making any effort to avoid the pools of blood and debris in his path, paints a picture of a man's face, if you could see it, that revels in battle; is at it's best in mortal combat. If perhaps there is some remorse at the taking of life in those eyes, it is drowned by the glory of facing death and emerging the victor.

"There is still probably a third of the gang left and I don't see Roman's corpse. We should check the basement where they were drilling the vault. I bet that's where we will find them." The heavy Scottish brogue with which his words are said completes the picture of a modern Scots Highlander, a warrior poet in true form.

Max nods,

"Lead on."

(( EDIT: Nice post, Dougal! ))

The team's banter is interrupted by a shifting sound and the sudden appearance of a cybernetic arm bursting from a pile of rubble.

Max jumps backward and trains his shotgun on the arm after taking cover behind a piece of the crumbling structure.

Val takes cover and scans for any nodes within signal range. He begins analyzing the node closest to the cybernetic arm, gathering information and preparing to assult it if need be.

Doc ducks back behind the standing remains of a wall that had once divided the area into two rooms. He keeps the rifle ready.

The cybernetic arm plucks a large piece of concrete, revealing a badly injured ganger. He coughs, spattering blood across his chest.

Max approaches aggressively and pins down the cybernetic arm with his foot, shoving the barrel of the shotgun in the ganger's face. Roaring with authority, the elf demands,

"What were you looking for in the vault?! Talk, drekbag! Talk and you might just live."

(( Intimidation, if necessary. ))

Max's forcefulness doesn't let up as he belts,

"Where did he go??"

"I'll tell you if you help me to my bike and give me ...hrkk... your word I won't be harmed."

Max eyes the ganger dubiously,

"If you help us, we can patch you up a bit and send you on your way-- without weapons or any way to contact your buddies. I give you my word."

Surprisingly, Max actually means it.

Max determines the ganger seems genuine.

Max removes his first aid kit from his pack and splays it open after hastily pushing much of the rubble off of the ganger. Pulling the necessary tools, the elf performs a quick, minor triage on the wounded ganger so that he may be able to stand. Max is careful, however, not to patch him up too much. Mobile is much different than combat-ready.

((Can I get that invis roll nick?))

Tyros watches as Max and Doc patch the hanger up. Content to let them handle the interrogation, Tyros decides not to get involved but can't resist saying, "You do realize I could just pick the information out of his brain, right?"

(( I dunno, your recent history indicates that you might have to roll that six or seven times to arrive at the information. ))

Max ignores the comment from Tyros as he continues to work on the ganger.

In an amusing reversal of roles, doc keeps his rifle trained on the ganger, while Max patches him up.

Sinjin steps gingerly over a broken desk chair and pauses to stamp out a small flame before continuing toward the center of the room. He stops to study Max's work as he patches up the bloody ganger.

"If I just heard that ganger correctly, sounds like Heckerman conned his way into a double setup. He baited the Scorpions to muscle their way in, and provide a cover for the vault heist. Once inside, he abandoned them, and hoped to clean up his trail by having a team of competent and confidential killers sweep up the mess afterwards.." he says, nodding to the wounded Scorpion.

"I hate a setup. The question now is, do we play along and simply get paid...or do we send a message to future clients that we wont be frakked with. Track Heckerman, take his money...maybe a finger or two... "

"I guess the first thing to do though, is clear the rest of this building."

Max stops his bleeding and gives him a low dosage pain-killer.

Gringo extends his cybernetic arm. "Help me out of here. I'll tell you what you want to know."

Val nods thoughtfully at Sinjin's musings.

"Hell. If Heckerman had these poor bastards implanted with those sick-chip things with the express purpose of selling them out... I think he deserves to lose more than a few fingers just on general principle."

Val glances toward the ganger.

"I'll be interested to see if this chum can corroborate any of this."

Adams nods in agreement with Val.

"If we can prove any of this, then Heckerman doesn't deserve our pity. I've done rash things to people who've done less. And if there was really enough cash in that vault for him to justify all of this, then I imagine we shouldn't have trouble extracting our pay from that."

Max nods,

"I think you all know where I stand on dealing with drekbags like Heckerman. And yes, we ought to send a message to all future employers: we are not to be fragged with."

Max reaches down abruptly and yanks the ganger up.

"Start talking."

Gringo clutches his broken ribs and limps towards the entrance to city hall, with Max's help.

"I've heard about this Heckerman guy--never seen him though, which I thought was strange. Roman said that the guy had a Wizard of Oz complex and thought being in public might make his constituents see him as a human instead of an ideal. Whatever the frag that means. Anyway ...hcck.. when Roman was a kid, he found a tunnel out of the city. It's what he used when he ran away as a teenager and what we used to gain access to the city."

Max nods,

"Where's this tunnel? Where are the others now?"

"The tunnel is inside a power sub-station near the back of the city. I don't know where Roman is--in the vault, perhaps."

Gringo mounts his bike with great effort. "He's not your typical sprawl ganger, elf. Don't underestimate him."

Max puts his hands on the bike's handlebars and says,

"And where's the vault?"