Week Six

Tuesday May 9th, 2043/ Wednesday May 10th, 2043

Early, early on Wednesday morning, BUG tired of watching the Lewiston Apartments and decided to join Derek, Rook, and Drake at Derek's apartment (Alex was at his own apartment, still working on the hard drive retrieved from Ferguson). While walking there, however, she was stopped by four NERCC agents...rather than allow them to talk to her or possibly arrest her, she decided to fight.

BUG killed one with her claws, shot another in the head with her gyroc, and then blew up the car with APEX rounds (which took care of the other two). She was hit in the back with exploding rounds, which wrecked her monocrys coat and wounded her back, but once all the nerks were out of action she ran to Derek's apartment without further incident.

When BUG arrived and told everyone what had happened, they naturally prepared for more nerks...but, apart from a single black chopper Rook saw from the roof, no one else came. BUG's wounds were dressed, and everyone went to sleep.

Wednesday May 10th, 2043

Everyone in Derek's apartment was awoken early (6 am) by a knock at the door. It was a man in a black suit, apparently going door to door and evangelizing about "the return of the Old Gods"...when Derek refused to speak to him or accept his literature, and threatened to do him grave bodily harm, the man moved on to the next apartment.

During the morning, Rook did a little checking around and turned up the name of a local store that sold fur...even illegal real fur, if the price was right (Tawny's Fur Emporium, in Bellevue).

A short time later, Gipetto called everyone and introduced them to Griffon, their new netrunner. Griffon didn't speak to them with a visual, preferring instead to speak from the net and use his icon (which was, naturally enough, a griffon). The team downloaded to him the 20 discs of surveillance footage they had, along with the four files from Ferguson's hard drive and all the notes they had. They asked him to:

• decrypt the remaining 3 Ferguson files
• figure out what the decrypted file's contents were
• run the car plate 340-RZJ (plate of one of the red NERCC trucks)
• find out more about the black man with the tattooed skull
• find out more about the address 34 West Holyoke Street

Derek went to see his "friend" Jonesy, the boxing promoter at the Hole, and agreed to fight this Friday so that Jonesy would search a little harder for the mysterious black man. While returning to his apartment, a NERCC car gave chase, but Derek easily avoided them by throttling through traffic.

Drake checked in with her contact, Bill, to see if he had learned anything. He hadn't, but said that an occasional contact of his named Diamond Dave (down in the Barrens) might possibly know something. Bill wasn't quite sure what Diamond Dave's fee might be, but he hinted that it might be extra for those not black like Dave.

When Drake returned to Derek's apartment (laden with groceries) at around 1 pm, she noticed the same evangelizer who had gone to Derek's that morning just a few doors down. When Rook and Alex went out to the hallway to look around, he was already gone. Rook asked the occupant of the apartment he had been knocking on if an evangelizer had been around, and the man said yes, just once, and just a few minutes ago.

Griffon called back in the afternoon, with the answers to a couple of the team's questions.

- plate 340-RZJ was definitely registered to NERCC

- 34 West Holyoke Street was "Que Xung's Antiques"- an antique shop fronting for an illegal chop shop run by Que Xung. Dr. Xung had immigrated from Vietnam 12 years ago, and his practice had a reputation for being discreet.

The team asked Griffon if he could work on some additional information as well:

• more information on the two local Drew Johansen's
• research if there's a way to put humans to sleep through vid screens
• try to enhance the surveillance footage of the two AmerIndians and find out what they were saying
• more information on Tawny's - layout, records, etc...

In preparation for the trip to the Barrens, to see Diamond Dave, Drake asked Rook if he could get her a car for the evening. He "rented" a large Cadillac from one of his "friends" for her. Afterwards, he called Gipetto and asked him for the series and model number of the system he was trying to break into- Gipetto said he would check and get back to him. Rook also asked him if he knew a man named Que Xung. At first Gipetto said he'd never heard of him, but then thought he "might have heard the name somewhere." Gipetto ended the call by mentioning that Rook would find a new G3K in his coffin.

Lastly, Alex conducted a world-wide search for anything to do with eyes, or the removal of eyes, on the net.