in_the_cracks | A Talk Among Shadows [for likeashadow ]

"Pretty sturdy case ya got here. What's the machine noise in the walls from?" Having been taught a long time ago to pay attention to what might be connected to a security system, mechanical or magical, hearing walls that hummed stood out to Annah.

She grabs a chair without bothering to find a cushion and waits expectantly for Telrim to explain the missionfurther.

Telrim smiles slightly at the compliment. She's used to giving - and receiving - polite words without taking them seriously, but there are kinds that actually mean something. "I have a few systems installed that'll keep prying eyes and ears out of our conversation. Nothing too fancy: I don't trust the Nexus not to play with them."

She shifts the datapad she's carrying into her hands, taps at it for a minute to access the right information. Then she sets it face-up on the table between them, and keys a switch of modes. The display shifts into a holographic projection of a map. At the moment it shows a spiderweb outline of of North America, though rather than cities it's peppered with small dots glowing in red, green, yellow and blue. Except around California. That region is dead black.

"The target I have in mind should be a soft one," Telrim says. "The complication is that it's less one target than a series of targets."

Annah eyes the hologram -- not much distinguishable from a magical glamer in her mind -- with curiosity.

"How big an area is this?" She asks, unfamiliar with the landmass depicted before her. "Which are th' targets?" She points to the colored dots. "An' what's the black blob on th'west?"

"From east coast to west, it's about four thousand kilometres - but for us it might as well be nothing." She waves the black part off dismissively. "That's somewhere we're not bothering with."

Although one might notice there's a general gradient away from the black region: red dots closest to it, followed by green and yellow, with blue dots farthest out.

Telrim rests a palm on the table and leans forward, pointing out features as she mentions them. "Each of these is a museum or gallery. The red dots take priority, then green; the yellow and blue sites can be ignored. Our job is to collect a sample of work from as many of these sites as possible in the space of a few hours."

"So yeh've got means fer us to teleport once we've get there." Annah notices the pattern, but as she cares little for the specifics of what goes on in a Prime, simply files away the observation for the time being.

"So if they're proper museums, probably guards, traps, and alarms. Magic, tech, or both? Do yeh have the layout of'em in that sparkle-box of yers?" Annah points at the datapad.

Telrim merely nods to the first question. "Guards and alarms, yes. Tech only; no magic, no traps. At least, no dangerous traps," she amends. If you call those traps.

Another couple of pokes, and a small bar appears above each dot, shading from dull orange to bright white the higher it is.

"This represents the amount of information I have on each site," Telrim says, pointing one out. "I have rough layouts for all of them. Unfortunately, I've only been able to get proper blueprints for about a third of them so far. It's not necessary, but it does save a lot of time."

"So, we go ta the white spots first, get the easy part done with.

"Not sayin' I expect it, but if we hafta take on the guards--human, I'm guessin'--how much bashin' you alright with? Box'em or leave'em breathing? I don't care, but I don't like leavin' a mess neither unless I'm cornered."

"Do what you have to." Telrim's entirely unconcerned about the guards' welfare: her host has more qualms. "But where possible I'd prefer to leave them alive. It'll make them far slower to take notice of us."

It's also good practice to leave them useful.

"And most will be reluctant to draw weapons on someone who hasn't actually attacked. They are only human. Are you familiar with handguns, in Sigil?"

Edited 2013-09-12 08:08 (UTC)

"Aye. An' if it goes as it should they won't notice at all. But I've learned not to assume things go ta plan."

She nods. "Pistols, flintlocks. Loud things they are, but put a big hole in yeh if they work right. That's what they have, then?"

"Right. I understand their versions are stronger than the old flintlocks - probably faster to reload, as well. They may have stun-guns instead, in which case they'll try to zap you at short range. Nothing heavier. I... doubt they'll be very accurate with either." No soldiers, these - not even by human standards.

She adds, "I won't be so limited, of course. If things go that badly at any point, we shouldn't have trouble extracting ourselves and moving on."

"Aye, I won't take no chances."

"So the best thing is ta get in away from their sight--an' make sure however we get in is big enough we can squeeze out with yer collection. Roof, sewer, probably best, bring canvas t'protect the pieces. Roof access means it'd be a good idea ta have a breaker's harness or somethin' like if yeh've got it. And what [i]have[/i] yeh got with yeh, anyways?"

"Weapons or general equipment?" She knows there's no point shying around things, it's just habit to focus on what outsiders need to know. "We don't have a harness at the moment but I could probably lay hands on one. Our teleport mechanism's portable, so getting inside and being alone with the pieces will be enough - no need to worry about a large entrance. I imagine anything technological you might ask for, I can supply."

She hesitates for just an instant, overcoming the instinct to withhold. "I'll be carrying a few tools to help with the security systems... and stunning-to-lethal weaponry."

"I travel light but I think I've got what I need. Mebbe could use some kinda smokebombs or smokesticks if we run inta savvier guards than usual, to buy time but not hurt anything. Escape plan, jest in case something goes wrong."

She shrugged. "Otherwise I'm ready if yeh are, best look at the first building."

"I can certainly find some of those." Telrim approves - not least because she doesn't often get to play with those. She's looking forward more and more to this little outing.

She contemplates the map for a minute, mentally running through the dozens of targets she's scouted, mapped, taken notes on...

A tap on one red dot and the display shifts to a rough building schematic alongside a small list of files. At her touch the schematic expands to fill the projection, splitting out into three separate floors. Telrim starts pointing out the alarmed windows, the entrances, the likely locations of security guard and circuit breakers...

Edited 2013-09-16 22:38 (UTC)

Annah's eyes dart back and forth across the map, trying to take in as much of the information as she can. "The alarms, they loud ones, or ones that have a way of signalling to the guards silently?"

She pointed at the map. "And where's yer piece yeh want ta move? Is it alarmed? Automaton eye, pressure plate?"

"Priority goes to this painting here." She highlights a spot on the first floor, bringing up a small tab with a couple of notes on the target, including estimated dimensions. "It should be in that position; if we can't find it, there'll be plenty of alternatives to pick from. Expect noisy alarms if they're triggered; I didn't find any alarms on the actual pieces in this place, although it's possible they've upgraded since. It will only require a quick scan to check."

"Alright. These're public galleries, right? So if yeh wanted ta double check the location, we could just go in during peak -- the day -- and look." She looks down at herself, in her outfit of oddly-sewn together leather, hide, and metal plates. "Probably I'd need different clothes though." She had noticed most Primes tended to dress more conservatively than your average Hiver guttersnipe.

"Otherwise, I'd say let's go on this ride."

Telrim chuckles. "You'd certainly stand out. The world where I'm from only has standard humans - they might have fits if they met you."

She flicks the display back to the main map. "Entertaining as that would be, there isn't time. Don't you want to hear about the other possible targets?" She looks up at Annah, head tilted curiously, eyes studying. She's intrigued. "Or do you think you can take each one as it comes?"

"I could tuck me tail in under somethin'," Annah grumbles. She might even have pouted a moment but that quickly transforms back into her usual sneer. Then an amusing thought strikes her and she smiles. "'Course if they're tha' Clueless, could be a laugh to see the conies flail about."

As to the method of procedure. "I'm interested, but I'd rather do one at a time." She sighs, realizing reluctantly this is no time for bravado. "I ain't been to this world before, I don't know the turf save fer what yeh show me. I'd rather get one layout firmly drawn in me head afore I hafta tackle the next. I don't know what yer timetable is, but if we're teleportin' back to a safepoint between rides, I reckon we can check the rig fer the next target then." She shifts weight from one hip to the other.

"On th'other hand, if there's somethin' in yer brain-box yeh feel the burnin' urge to shed now, then spill it."

Edited 2013-09-20 13:58 (UTC)

"Something to try later." Telrim's smirk says she's not at all averse to having some fun at the humans' expense. They might have a little opportunity on this job, in fact, but they'll have to save the real games for another time.

She listens to Annah and gives a short, pleased nod. It will be much more interesting to watch her companion adapt as they go - and more instructive. "No, I think that's all of the essentials. We can take a few minutes to regroup between targets, as you say."

She nods at the display. "You're good to go, I take it? I'll need... perhaps an hour to collect all our equipment."

((( ooc: First my DSL died. By the time I got it fixed, I forgot to check this. Do you want to keep going? I'd be happy to I just am sorry I broke up the momentum)))

Annah nods. "Then I'll be back here in an hour." That would give her time to make sure she had what she wanted to bring with her as well. Maybe grab a few clot charms, just in case...

Edited 2013-09-30 17:08 (UTC)

(ooc: No worries! I figured RL had come up! :) Excuse my slowness in replying, but I'd love to keep going.))

"Excellent." She doesn't offer to leave the door unlocked. Telrim switches off the datapad and tucks it under her arm, leading the way to show her new ally out. "I look forward to seeing what you can do."

"Aye," is all Annah says, following Telrim out.

Annah had left herself a few caches of supplies throughout the area should she need them, and she went off to one of those places now, disappearing into the streets, amazingly fading into the shadows despite her ostentatious appearance. She made sure she had some additional tools, some healing charms and the like, all somehow stashed in this or that protective plate or boot.

She returns on time--and wraps once on the door. Should there be no answer, she will indeed let herself in (or try).

((ooc: Sure, I will probably be a bit slow too, but this is fine. Question--doing the thiefy bits, do you want to "run" the storyline (determining layout, success/failure, guard activities) or are we both just to throw stuff in as we go along? I am fine with either, but want to be clear--sometimes folks prefer to "game master" and others prefer an all hands on deck approach))

Telrim might just have dawdled intentionally. Blunt and cold as they can be, it's always tests and tricks and head games with Yeerks. It's just that part of the game is not letting that on.

In this case, she's a little more than five minutes late, a rather military-looking rucksack slung over one shoulder. Since the door security really is as simple as a passcode, she won't be surprised to find Annah inside. Or angry in the least. She'll look rather amused, in fact.

((ooc: Good point. :) I'm happy for us both to throw stuff in. I don't have a fixed plan in mind, and GMing solo can be pretty tiring.))

Annah turns to Telrim, and seeing the woman smile, Annah figures she had done as expected. This is both pleasing and disconcerting. It reminded her of the look on Pharod's face, when she'd learned a new trick he'd taught her (often not realizing she was being taught until the lesson was finished). Sign of a working partnership, also sign she was being tested.

"Yeh know, there's somethin' about yeh that reminds me of ol' Stuttercrutch. Cannae quite mark it." While she addressed Telrim, she almost seemed to be more remarking to herself. "Yeh run a lot of these 'missions'?" Annah stretches, tail lengthening itself along with her arms. She eyes the rucksack, trying to guess at its contents.

"I hope that's a good thing." She gives Annah a curious look as she sets the rucksack on the table. The Controller's changed into some very nondescript dark grey clothes. Yeerk issue. What they lack in style they make up in durability.

"And no, not really. I don't usually need to, and it's hard to find competent help where I'm from." Or rather, to get them to spare time for her unimportant side-projects. Telrim unpacks some of the equipment as she replies, setting a box and a breather mask on the table. She taps the box. "Smoke bombs, as requested. How's your night vision?"

Annah shrugged. "No' good nor bad, jes' I expect yer canny enough. So don't let me down, jig?"

She picks up the mask, examining it, and then the box, and looks up to answer the question. "Better than yers I'd reckon. No lights, I still see, just without color."

((ooc: technically, she is from the era of D&D when her kind had "infravision" but "darkvision" is a lot easier to roleplay so I tend to err on the side of ease.))

"Of course not," she says, lightly but assured. She has a vested interest in their success, after all - and it's nothing compared to her host's.

"...Consider me jealous. You won't need the goggles, then." She pulls out a neatly folded climbing harness, legacy of some mission or another. "Check if that's any use to you."

Annah takes the harness and turns it over in her hands, testing the joints and appraising the craftsmanship. "It'll do," Annah says, understating that it is obviously well made. "Light, too. With all yeh've said, hopefully we won't need it, but depending on where something's stored or mounted, I'd rather have the rig ta fetch it from above."[/b]

She also opens the box, examining the smoke bombs, and checks with Telrim whether they burst on impact or need to be activated. Either way, she seems to wave her wrists and two or three disappear--expert legerdemain, nothing mystical, and it's probably best not to think too hard about where in her bizarre patchwork outfit/armor she's hidden them. She does tuck the mask and additional bombs into a pouch attached to the back of her hip, behind and above one of her punch dagger sheaths.

"What have yeh got ta fight with? Best be sure we ain't steppin' on each other's toes if we've got ta defend ourselves. I tend ta fight up close--but if yeh provide a distraction, I'm good at hitting the vitals when they ain't expectin'--or knockin' 'em out, as we ain't tryin' ta make a mess."

Telrim shows her how to trigger the bombs before throwing them, and watches with interest as several of them vanish. One of these days, she has to obtain a host with that kind of skill. If only for a while.

"I can certainly demand their attention," she replies to the question. From the pouch she draws out the object that's obviously taking up most space. It's roughly recognisable as a gun, but the proportions are off: it's snub-nosed and slick in its dark metal casing. Telrim shifts its weight into her arms with the ease of long familiarity.

"This is a ranged energy weapon with, as I said, the option to either stun or kill." It hums very faintly as she activates it, the sound varying with her movements as she runs a habitual check. It can do much more than kill, after all. "Luckily for us both, I'm not a bad shot."

"Fancy yerself quite the cutter, don't yeh?" Annah smiles. "Alright then. I'm ready when yeh are."

"I can do what's required." But she smirks for a moment, as she powers down the weapon. She extracts her own gear from the pack: the straps to sling the Dracon beam comfortably at her side, and a pair of night-vision goggles which she pulls on, pushed above her eyes for now. The rest is already tucked into her jacket pouches.

Everything in place, she slings the pack over her shoulder, checks the PINpoint co-ordinates, and nods to Annah. "Grab onto my shoulder."

It'll take only that and a momentary flash to land them in an alley behind the building they want.

Annah pauses, as she does not come from a very "touchy" society, but certainly understands a lot of teleportation magic (or tech) requires contact. She reaches out and wraps her hand around Telrim's shoulder. Her touch is unusually warm.

As they arrive, Annah immediately begins looking around taking in her new surroundings. She pauses to look up a moment, as well. She's been to planes with proper skies, but she still finds open sky slightly disconcerting, used to the torus-shaped Sigil curving in and around on all sides but the center of the ring, where the "sky" there is dominated by the view of the Spire. She quickly stops gaping, certainly not wanting to be taken for a Clueless Tourist, and goes back to assessing their position, entrances, exits, and obstacles.

She points at the larger of the buildings they stand between. "That's the place, aye?"

Telrim understands that feeling, to a degree - the Yeerk sense of boundaries is very questionable, but physical contact is rarely gentle, even when well-meant. She's momentarily surprised by the heat of Annah's touch, but there's no time to dwell on it.

The sky they arrive beneath is tinted orange with reflected light, no stars to be made out. Perhaps that's a comfort to anyone outside at this hour. Telrim doesn't know.

"That's it," she agrees, gaze flicking around to check for humans. Above their current position is a set of tall windows; she points further down to where the alley widens out, and there's a set of bigger doors into their building. "That's where they take most of their deliveries. We can get in there and find the circuit breakers to shut down the rest of their security, unless you have another idea."

Annah eyes the windows, and then the loading dock doors. "If the map's right, those look out from the same room." She jumps and grabs onto the narrow window ledge, pulls herself up just enough that she can see through the window. Her tail curled about to help her maintain balance. "Aye. No one's in there that I can see. Probably better to try the doors though first." The windows, sensibly, were sealed shut, with thick wire reinforced glass. Not impenetrable, but potentially noisy to deal with.

She hops back down and looks a the doors. There was a card lock, not something that Annah dealt with often, although she was from a place with a lot of doors (and Doors) and hence an infinite variety of locks and keys (and Keys).

"Yeh got a key for this? Otherwise, probably can bust it and pry the door open, but would that raise any alarms?"

Telrim casts an appreciative eye at that stabilizing tail as Annah jumps down. Humans in this world are the exception in being tailless bipeds, and former Hork-Bajir Controllers tend to feel the lack.

She steps forward, scanner drawn to examine the lock. "It's a simple system, even for- places like this. One moment."

The Controller switches a few settings and presses the device to the card detector. On the dimmed display, a red symbol spins rapidly for a second, then halts and turns green. At the same moment, the lock beeps, and the door clicks open.

"If anyone's watching the system, they might wonder who's coming in late," Telrim observes quietly, stowing her tools.

"Well, they can wonder all they like, but best fer them they don't come ta pay a visit." Annah slips through the door, sticking to the shadows where she can and looks around, waving to Telrim to follow her.

"There's some kinda modron eye watchin' over there"--she points to a security camera--"But I think we stick to the side over here it won't spot us."

"If yeh need her goggles of night yeh'd best put'em on now." Staying in the shadows of some crates, she guesses at a button by the door and presses it, and it slides shut. "Where next?"

Sticking close, Telrim pulls her goggles down. She takes a moment to blink as her vision adjusts, at once better and worse than she's used to.

"Hmm. As I recall, there are stairs that way." She points to one of the smaller doors across the room. Oh, certainly they could get to the circuit breakers nearby and probably take out all the automated security in the building, but after Annah's remark about the camera, she's decided she'd like to see how many more the thief can get past. Might as well play such games while the going is easy.

Annah can sneak past the odd "eyes" she's noticed, but she remembers Telrim mentioning the circuit breakers a few minutes ago.

"Is that where those 'breakers' are yeh spilled about?" Annah still dashes forward, somehow finding every darkest area to hide in, and snakes her head around to examine the stairs.

It's something to watch her move, though that sharp memory looks set to thwart Telrim's curiosity at this rate.

"They'll be in a cupboard somewhere," she says, following much more cautiously. Her scanner's out again, just to double-check for any more alarms. "Possibly down at the bottom of the stairwell, yes."

Or in one of the closets across the room, but then the camera's covering that end...

Annah examines the door to the stairway carefully, but sees nothing to worry her. Fortunately, though she might not realize, staircases are often used for evacuation and thus the doors to them tend not to be locked. She pushes at the push bar, then, noticing its weight, holds onto it as it closes so it doesn't make a lot of noise as it relatches (although if Telrim follows she does not object). She blinks as dim orange night lights in the stairwell cancel out her darkvision, and peers downward, where the stairs turn and lead to a solid metal door.

This one, perhaps leading to a maintenance room or storage, has a fair more traditional lock than the card lock. Annah removes her earring, looking at a glance like an punk-esque assemblage of junk turned jewelry, and assembles from it a rather clever set of lockpicks, which she uses to deftly disable the pesky lock.

Telrim does indeed follow, and despite her claim not to run these missions often, she has had practice moving quietly in this body. She closes the door quietly but lingers close to it, automatically taking up a guard position as Annah goes for the lock below. She expects the night watchman to be on the ground floor, but she's listening for steps either on the stairs or beyond the heavy door.

There isn't time for anyone to near their position, though: in moments she hears the faint click of a failed lock and comes down to check the small maintenance room beyond. And there indeed are the circuit breakers, Telrim's logical guess more accurate than intended. It's not even worth checking them for further tricks.

She gives a soft 'hmh'; if Annah doesn't get to them first, she'll step in to snap the rows of switches upward, plunging them back into dark as the night lights are extinguished. Along with everything else.

Though she tries to conceal it as quickly as it comes, she stares a little blankly at the row of switches, uncertain where to begin or what does what. She therefore steps aside quickly when Telrim silently volunteers to throw the switches.

"The mark was on th'upper floor, aye?" Annah whispers, trying to picture the layout Telrim had pointed out in her "illusory" map. She is also listening--if this was the only place the circuit breakers were located, any guards certainly would come down to investigate--but that also means this is no place to wait. "Let's give this place the laugh." She hisses and is already moving, rapidly yet still softly padding up the stairs, back to the loading area where they mentioned.

Soon enough, there are signs of a guard coming from two different directions: one, from an upper floor, entering the stairwell from the sounds of the clanking door. Another is heading toward the loading dock from indoors on that level, his flashlight gleaming through the window in the door he approaches, the doorway earlier protected by the now-dark camera. Annah scrambles up onto a crate and waits, the faint silhouette of her tail twitching like that of a cat waiting to pounce.

"Right," Telrim says softly, answering both comments as she looks up the stairs. She follows Annah without wasting time, shutting the stairwell door quietly behind them.

It's a decent place for an ambush. Telrim backs up so she can cover Annah and the door behind them at the same time. Their incoming guard on the ground seems a little hesitant. Perhaps he's tired, or perhaps he's noticed the logged ID entry followed by the power failure and he's experienced enough to wonder what's going on.

"I'll handle the stairs," she whispers as that thin beam of light bobs and flashes across the crates around them. If Annah takes this one out quietly enough, the other won't even know and they can ambush him at the breakers. Even if he does hear, the darkened steps will slow him down.

Annah nods to Telrim and waits as the guard approaches, silently urging herself to be patient. The guard was wary and therefore slow. He might be canny enough to look above the crates and find her. She decides for an old, overused but tried and true trick: she fishes out a coin and tosses it across the room into a corner, striking the grated metal floor. He predictably turns toward the source of the noise, and then she leaps down and slams him in the back of the head with the hard metal knob at the side of one of her punch daggers, it having been drawn swiftly and silently as she had jumped.

He gasps, gurgles, and drops to the ground with a soft thud.

Knowing even that noise might cause the other guard to be more cautious, she slides up behind Telrim, nodding to her that she has the woman's back. Doubtless, the woman was already taking action even as she moved.

On another note, a few days from now, a loading dock worker would find a bent Sigil Copper Common in the corner, wondering where such an odd coin had come from.

The thud of a fallen body is a promising sound, and in the darkness Telrim's mouth flickers upward at the edges. All her attention is turned on the stairwell now. By this time the other guard is nearly down the steps, liable to find the flipped breakers at any moment. It seems he does hear something as his colleague falls: there's a muffled (but not worried) call of "Hey, Bobby?" from the other side of the door.

The Controller takes advantage of his moment's unwariness: she shoves the door open, Dracon beam readied. Before he twigs it's not his friend there, she snaps off a shot. There's a flash of orange light from her weapon, a sound like a high, soft 'tsew!' and it catches him across the chest. He crumples back onto the steps, and Telrim peers at him a moment before deciding he's still breathing, then steps into the stairwell, peering upward for any more employees.

"Looks like we're clear," she says in a low voice.

Annah's impressed by the ray weapon, and the back of her mind she starts calculating the street value of what is essentially a magic wand that doesn't require knowledge of spell triggers to use. That is something to consider later, however.

She grabs some nearby bungee cord used for securing packages to dolly carts, and binds the hands and feet of the guard she knocked out. Just in case he comes to sooner than they expect.

"After yeh," she says to Telrim.

A Talk Among Shadows [for likeashadow ]

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I often feel that way about California ;)

To be fair, I hear it's not /always/ being blown up by aliens :p

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I am so sorry.

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Just moving up here so there's more room to read, continuing from the alley

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