Clusterfrag

Max eases himself into the room, being careful not to make a sound. The elf remains cautious for any unseen security measures.

The wall panels are covered in ukiyo-e illustrations and the floor is carpet. From the decor, the team can only deduce they've arrived in the residential quarters. Max can hear two people conversing just around the corner from the small lounge room that he's crept into.

The nimble elf creeps forward toward the corner around which he can hear the muffled conversation in hopes of overhearing something in English, though he's not optimistic. As he makes his way closer to the conversing pair, Max gestures back over his shoulder for Sinjin to join him in the room.

Unfortunately the conversation is in Japanese and sounds more or less like soy noodles being jammed inside the elf's pointy ears. Overhead, the fire alarm strobes continue to pulse--albeit without the accompaniment of a blaring siren. One has to wonder how intense a disaster is that would reach all the way to the residential quarter.

<"This is not where we want to be, mates. If we go to the las through the residential quarter we face the se external security as if we just tried to walk in on our recon earlier. I'll go with the will of the team, but I think entering the labs via the elevator shaft is probably the route of least resistance.">

The sound amplification of Sinjins custom earbuds allow him to clearly listen in on the conversation occurring in the adjacent room. He pauses with a hand out, preparing to translate the words for the rest of the team.

Sinjin translates in real time:

"Will we have to evacuate?"

"I don't think so, they said the fires were just in the research quarter."

"I wonder what's going on?"

"Probably trouble in robotics. Again."

Max creeps his way toward the other ext to the room and peeks cautiously out.

The team seems to have emerged in a sort of no-mans land between the residential and commercial sectors. A long carpeted hallway stretches before Max, the right side of which is entirely glass. The causeway to the research quarter can be observed just a few meters away.

The team traverses the ducts back towards the direction of the research quarter. There's a steep descent which takes them down 10 or so meters before moving forward again. The duct finally terminates at another grating, this one seems to be protruding from the ceiling of the room that it's located in.

Peering through the slats, Doc can make out lab tables below.

Max noses up next to Doc and asks almost rhetorically,

"Paydirt?"

Doc scans the room for people, before working on the grating.

"Yeah, either that, or we've stumbled on a very well funded school science lab."

A figure scurries across Doc's field of view, shouting into his comm-link.

Sinjin repeats the man's frantic outbursts.

"Of course I'm right. We haven't even seen a fire here in ten years. It's Takahara-san, it has to be. No, but the project is nearly complete. He's delaying."

The man stops, some 4 meters or so directly underneath the grating.

Doc does another check for any other people in the area.

"Grab a hold of the grate so it doesn't just fall off," he whispers to Max, loosening the bolts around the grate as quietly as possible.

Doc removes the bolts as quietly possible, remaining unnoticed by the guard directly below.

Max pulls the grating into the duct and sets it down quietly behind them. Looking back to Doc, the elf's eyes meet the human's and he whispers,

"Stick and shock?"

Doc unslings his SMG, and gives Max a nod and a look that says, "just what I was thinking."

Laying prone in the duct, he slides the tip of the barrel out of the opening, and aims downward. He switches the fire selector to burst fire. Might at well make sure the job gets done.

There's a muffled *thwiiip* as a trio of shocker darts streak toward the unsuspecting man.

In sync with Doc firing his round of darts, Max slips down from the vent as quietly as he can to ensure that he can cover the distance quickly should anything go wrong.

[ Max = 59 ]
[ Doc = 48 ]
[ Guard = 34 ]
[ Sinjin = 31 ]
[ Tyros = 30 ]
[ Val = 28 ]

(( Max is delaying action. ))
(( 8S DAMAGE! ))
The guard jerks and falls to the floor, incapacitated from the barrage of stick 'n shock rounds.

Max rushes up to the guard and puts his hands over the guard's mouth to keep him from making audible gurgling sounds. The elf wonders if the guard might swallow his tongue lying on his back like this, and quickly concludes that he doesn't care. Holding the man down, Max scans his surroundings quickly to make sure that nobody has been alerted.

Max has dropped down into a large lab. The tables are covered with bits of robotics--sinewy motor-wire, actuators and circuit boards. There's only one exit from the room, which is a security door at the far side. The room is inhabited only by the elf and the flickering security strobes.

Adams turns around in the duct, and slides out feet-first, holding onto the ledge until his arms are fully extended. He drops down and lands unevenly, arresting his fall with his hands.

He approaches the unconscious man. "Hows the patient?" He asks Max.

Max taps the man on the chest and stands. Snooping around the room, Overstreet scans for any information that might be useful before he makes his way back to the unconscious guard to search his pockets.

Val drops down from the air duct with only a cursory glance at the incapacitated security guard. Looking down the sight rail of his assault rifle, he quickly performs a visual sweep of the room and takes inventory of his surroundings. Having identified the place where he's likely needed most, he lowers his rifle, walks briskly to the security door, and begins his inspection.

The security door requires only a mag-lock to access, though it looks as though it is in environment hazard lock-down. Through a small security window in the door frame Val can make out a long corridor, flanked on either side by dozens of rows of drones of different types. The area beyond the door seems to be deserted.

Doing a quick scan, Val locates the security node for the door's operation.

Adams retrieves another syringe of Laés as he leans over the incapacitated guard.

"I apologize in advance for the colossal hangover," he mutters to the man, plunging the chemical into his blood stream.

Val peers through the two-inch-thick perspex window at the row of drones, a handful of which appear to be security bots. All are currently dormant. Very small blessings are all Val--and FRSR in general--seem able to conjure these days. He sighs deeply.

Val considers dropping into VR, but reluctantly decides against it. He's known a handful of matrix chums, and otherwise, who've allowed the white-hot ecstasy of hot-sim data transfer to completely ruin their lives. At least, those who were lucky enough to hold onto their lives in the first place. Val has no intention of letting this little laboratory end up being the final resting place for the burned-out husk of his over-'wared skull.

Val runs his Stealth program, makes sure his Spoof program is loaded and ready to run, and takes a deep breath. Keeping an eye on the drones beyond the door, Val calls up an AR window. Thousands of lines of code scroll by his vision at speeds which would drive a lesser decker into a fit of epilepsy. Within moments, Val locates a suitable potential loophole in the node's firewall and begins his attempt to exploit it.

"Open sesame," Val whispers to himself.

A single bead of sweat rolls unnoticed down the decker's forehead.

Stat1C5hade maneuvers through matrix space. Approaching the security node, he reaches out and his hand explodes into a million twirling rectangles which reform on the surface of the security firewall.
The rectangles all converge to form a solid piece which vanishes, revealing a giant hole in the firewall through which Val's avatar flits. He's in with a non-security account.

A PA broadcast echoes around the laboratory.

Sinjin's eyes widen as he translates, his words following the announcer's, one by one.

"Routine work disposal procedure initiated. Purging environment in 20 seconds."

Adams shoots Val a panicked look.

"Get that door open!"

"Working on it," Val growls through gritted teeth.

Val fights down his rising panic through sheer force of will birthed from pure necessity. Thinking quickly, Val navigates the labyrinthine corridors of shifting code in search of the node's access log.

Val's avatar pulls his arm across his field of vision, rifling through digital files until he finds a large translucent orange box with the icon of a padlock on it. The log files are encrypted! With a quick gesture, Val activates his decryption program. A series of ciphers flicker through rotations above the box.
"...17 seconds..."
" ...14 seconds..."
" ...13... "
The orange box explodes outwards, padlock disintegrating as the correct cipher sinks into it.
Val's stealth program ends abruptly and his protective cloak vanishes.

"Intruder detected."