Blanking the Slate

[Serris]

Soren buckled himself in. He smiled. One of his escapades had actually gone right for once and not become a total clusterfuck.

Aaron buckled himself in the front passenger seat. He turned around. "Nice going guys! Our operation went off without a hitch."

The Human cracked his knuckles. "Yeah. I had to admit, when the secretary asked why we had four coming in and five coming out, I nearly shit myself. For a moment, I wasn't sure if she'd buy my excuse."

"Yeah. Just don't get too cocky." The German Shepherd looked at the rearview mirror. Nothing abnormal, just the normal flow of morning traffic with commuters heading to work.

[bushwacked]

The return journey took a couple of hours, taking longer coming back than it had going - a result of both the packed morning traffic and the numerous detours Marcus took to try and throw off anyone following them. He glanced frequently in the rear view mirror, but couldn't pick out any suspicious vehicles. By the time he was satisfied they were in the clear, it was approaching midday.

"We'll need to get rid of this vehicle as soon as we can," Marcus said as he took a right onto the block which housed the motel, tapping the steering wheel with his claw. "They'll be looking for it." He pulled into the motel's parking area, the tyres crunching over weeds which had managed to poke their way through the tarmac.

[Nick22]

thank you Marcus. just keep an eye out for anyone who might be tailing you. there was someone else looking for Emilena-I overhead someone inquiring about her on the security systems, claimed to be a police officer from a different city. whoever they are , we're very lucky to gotten Echo first.' arita said.

[aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato)]

Emilena opened her eyes wearily as they pulled up somewhere. Looked to be a seedy motel, somehow the nicest place she'll get to reside since god knows how long. Only half committing to being awake, she followed the team to the hotel room, resolving to continue her nap inside.

But when they reached the door to the room and met Lily standing there, arms crossed and expression furious, Emilena realized she had something more important to do.

"Hey. I need to talk to you in private." She led Lily around the corner to a reclusive catwalk. "Are you gonna try pulling anything on Axel?"

"I wasnt, but after what he just did to me I'm going to kill him," Lily replied bluntly.

Emilena sighed. "You know what I'm gonna say about that."

"And you know how little I care about what you have to say about that," Lily shot back.

"Why are you even on this team?" Emilena asked exasperatedly. "I gave you a chance to get off the grid. You can't possibly care what blackmail the Purifiers have cooked up."

"I want the location of their base." Lily's eyes flashed. "They can't hide from me forever. I'm removing them from the picture."

Emilena raised her eyebrows but decided not to nitpick the plan; the less she knew the better. "I know a way you could triangulate the location of their HQ."

Lily cocked an eyebrow. "How?"

"They kidnapped me in an outfit I mugged from a civilian. In the pocket was the poor sap's cell phone. Even if they've wiped and destroyed the phone by now, the service provider will have record of its past GPS coordinates."

Lily narrowed her eyes. "What was the number?"

"I only made a few calls, I'd need to get to one of the sources to reverse lookup." Emilena bit her lip. "But I'll only do that if you promise to leave Axel alone."

"That's too restrictive," Lily protested. "Here's my version." Her eyes drilled into Emilena's. "If you get me the Purifier coordinates, I WON'T kill Axel during this mission. I might even forget about him afterwards, I'll have a bigger fish to fry." She smiled wickedly.

Emilena sighed again. "If that's the best I'm gonna get, good enough. Now if you'll excuse me, there's someone else demanding information that only I know." Without further ado she left for the hotel room.

Flora looked up in surprise when the vixen entered. "Holy crap, they actually did it! Emi's back!'

[Serris]

When Aaron and Soren returned, Anne had woken up from her slumber. Her ears twitched as she munched on a cheap bean burger she had gotten from a nearby take-out joint.

The mare looked over the group. "Just so you know, I picked up some radio chatter. Someone's looking for Emilena."

"A little late for that," Aaron growled as he helped himself to a bottle of water from the minifridge.

Anne snorted and blew some air through her nostrils. "No, I mean they're still looking for her."

Soren stripped out of his wet jumpsuit and tossed it in the corner of the room. He then flopped onto the couch with a sigh as he ran a hand down his face. "Oh great, now the fucking cops are onto us!"

Anne rubbed her mane and pawed the ground with a hoof. "Well, not yet. But someone else is...ans they're using a different frequency than the cops."

Aaron hurled his empty bottle into the trash. "We'll deal with that later. Right now, Marcus wants us to ditch the vehicle."

[bushwacked]

Marcus grunted. "Nothing we can stop to do anything about now... but that information won't hurt to know," he said to Anne. "Keep listening, see if you hear anything else." Fishing the van's key's out from his jacket pocket, he tossed them across the room to one of the Purifiers sitting at the small, rickety table. "Take the vehicle, leave it a good distance away from here. Make sure you aren't followed. And Josh... keep under the speed limit. You don't want to be noticed."

Axel, slumped over on the couch, moved his feet out of the way so Soren could sit down. "Good to see you in one piece." Frowning, he pinched a corner of Soren's damp shirt. "Did it rain?" Axel saw Emilena walk in, and he halfheartedly raised a hand in greeting. "Good to see you too. You must be thrilled to be back," he said dryly. "I'd offer you a beer, but all we have left is water that tastes like piss."

"Quiet." Marcus looked at Emilena, then pointed to the table. "Sit. Talk. Tell us everything you read in that file."

[aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato)]

Emilena nodded and stepped forward. "All right, I don't know what page you Purifiers are on, so I'm going to start from the beginning."

She unrolled a spread of brown paper towels on the coffee table and sketched out notes as she spoke. "Two weeks ago, the Gearheads all die. You get the normal rash of witnesses, investigations...but by 72 hours, every single one of those witnesses had signed away their silence." She looked up. "That doesn't happen. Too many people see a police procedural as their day in the limelight. Witnesses who won't shut up and camera-chasing false positives should be the norm."

She scribbled down some figures. "I'm not talking about the rubbernecks from the crash sites. I mean the people who actually know something, either due to being a coroner, Augmentician or related to Brennan Cybernetics." She sat back. "In a breach of police policy, the witness names weren't even recorded, at least not in the official archives. But the head of the investigation was. Officer Nash Black, he suspended the investigation almost immediately, citing the unwillingness of any key witnesses to comply. Which is way too convenient. Trust me, it's a cover-up and he's in on it."

[Serris]

"Oh it rained...inside the police station," Soren replied to Axel. He took a seat next to his friend and grabbed a now warm can of soda that he opened and drank.

Anne was sitting at the small computer desk in the corner and transcribing what she was picking up from the airwaves. The only sign of activity was the movements of her ears and occasional scribbles on a notepad.

Soren then got up from the sofa and headed to where Marcus and Emilena were talking. He had overheard them mention a name and hinted at said person being involved in a cover-up.

"Why don't we go pay this guy a 'friendly visit'?" Soren said as he approached the two.

Aaron shook his head. "Why don't we turn ourselves into the cops? Pissing off the cops always leads to a world of shit unless you've got enough creds to buy them off. We'll have to go through legal channels first." He then turned to Marita.

"Marita, use the Internet and the phone directory to find out as much as you can about this 'Nash Black' character. News reports, address phone number, anything," the German Shepherd said.

[Nick22]

nash black.. Nash black.. i'll see what i can find..' Marita said puling up her computer and began typing away..' If its a coverup, i'm likely not going to find much..people like that tend to cover their tracks, especially cops, who have access to info, most normal folks don't get.... hmm. Searching ..' her  claws flew over the keys and finally  she got some popups Ah.. Found  some stuff.. Hes marred, wifes name is Circe, she teaches preschool. Two Sons, Amos and Andrew both in high school, Amos is freshman Andrew a sophomore. Been in the force 10 years. Lives in the Hoodington area- thats a middle class area. address is 62 North Tree Lane, 3 story house,  looks to be in the 3 million  credit range,   door doesnt open unless he enters a password, which he changes every days.' Marita said." Host barbecues every 4th , has nearly every other officer in his department over. police record shows no citations, no court cases against him. Clean record, as far as i can tell.

[bushwacked]

"In other words, he's difficult to get to." Marcus rubbed his jaw. "Need to find out what he knows... Who bought him off. What happened to the witnesses. But with that much security, getting to him'll be difficult. And it'd take a lot of time to learn his day to day habits and snatch him that way."

"If getting to him is hard, why don't we bring him to us?" Axel said over his shoulder, still facing the flickering image on the TV. "You said Black has a wife right? Kids? We get our hands on one of them and say they die if he tries anything, could be an easy way to get him to cooperate."

[aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato)]

Flora was not a hacker, but she was more than capable of looking up Friendsbook. And as she idly checked out the profiles for Nash and his incredibly upper-class family, her heart skipped a beat when she got to Amos Black and her own alluring face beckoned her to the page.

The kid was a total fanboy. He had reposts from all over the paparazzi curcuit buried amongst traditional high school bullcrap posts.She had to mute her phone before Date this, an embarrassingly edgy single from her early years, started playing.

"Ummmm..." she started to say, then hesitated. This was a downright golden opportunity to get this Nash Black guy. His kid would jump at a chance to meet DJ Xyler, and then they'd have their hostage and could start negotiating. "Emilena, Marita, and...Soren. Could I talk to you three in private?" She wasn't sure why she included Soren; she'd just noticed he was something of a straightshooter and the others have repeatedly referred to him as a good trustable guy.

(Ooc: To save a post from each of us, I'm going to have Flora address whoever follows her into the bathroom. If for some reason your character does not want to follow, just note so in your next post.)

Flora gulped as she addressed those who followed her to the bathroom. "Okay, there's something y'all don't know about me." Not counting Rose, but no reason to call her out in front of Soren and Emi. "Look at this kid's profile. Look at the slut he's using for his background. Now look at me."

Emilena took the phone, squinted at the seductive fuscia dancer, and recognized the aquamarine eyes with surprise. "You're some sort of entertainer?"

"Yeah, that's me. Or was me, now Im undercover because of death threats. From radical anti-Augment fanatics." Flora gulped. "The Purifiers weren't specifically associated with the ones that tried to kill me, but I don't know how hot I am with revealing to the others how much money I'm worth. But as you can see, I've got a solid gold opportunity here with Nash's youngest kid." She made eye contact with each of them. "You all seem good at figuring solutions out. Should we capitalize on this, and is there some way to do it without blowing my cover to everyone else?"

[Nick22]

marita looked at the friends book page ' definitely, we need to capitalize in this ' we have an in with the kid, that gets us into the house ' you do a performance,with us as security. you perform, a couple songs, get everyone else outside. we search the house for 10 minutes or so, see what we can dig up. you've done private performances before havent you?' Marita said.

[Serris]

Soren looked at Amos Black's profile and then looked at Flora. The woman in front of him and the nearly nude dancer in the profile were a dead match.

He made sure the bathroom door was securely shut. He even contemplated running the shower but decided against it as that was sure to attract attention. "It's our best bet," he said. "That said...if we take his kid hostage, I have a feeling that Mr. Black might decide to round up his buddies and then we'll have a real problem. But I suspect he has a...shall we say 'personal interest' in the strip clubs and nightlife of Seryet City? What rich asshole doesn't?"

The Human then cracked his knuckles. "We can have you or Anne seduce him, then we drug him, haul him off and have our way with him."

[aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato)]

Emilena was still flipping through the phone at all the pictures of Flora. "This is seriously you?" she said incredulously.

"Stop looking at those!" Flora yanked the phone back. "The paparazzi make everything seem bad. Those are all out of context."

Emilena listened to Soren suggest seduction. She glanced at Flora. "Are you willing to seduce a police officer? It's pretty dangerous." Flora bit her lip. "And I'm worried about the private concert idea," she continued. "How are we supposed to to pitch that without revealing Shirley's identity to the Purifiers?"

"We could market it as an impersonator's concert. Like Elvis Impersonators, not like undercover. The Purifiers will probably buy it, it's more believable than us having the actual DJ Xyler on our team."

"I'm not sure that happens..." Flora admitted, racking her brains.  "Usually the fans ask me for a private concert, not the other way around."

"Well, if those photos are any indication, nobody will have any trouble believing you just want a quick shag with a fan," Emilena noted bluntly, and Flora shot her a dirty look. "Maybe we should just focus on the kid."

[Nick22]

well we could pretend its a contest.' easy to dream up a contest for a private concert with  the celebrity of your choice. put the promo in a few fb pages, have the kid enter. post a short video of a drawing of name - amos black- and then you  have the kid pick what act he wants to come to this house and perform. if hes the fanatic we think he is.  he';d ask for xyler." marita said.

[aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato)]

"How would I get to my gear?" Flora asked. "All my equipment and tapes are in my van, and god knows where that thing went after my last concert."

"A more concentrated focus on young Nash would be faster," Emilena noted. "Shirley should just contact this kid and test the waters. I think we're overestimating the level of guile needed to get a horny high schooler to trust his celebrity crush."

[aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato)]

It was almost scary how easily Amos believed her. Flora had run through multiple simulations in her head of evidence she could bring forth, telltale hints she'd need to drop to gain his trust...none of it was necessary. Within a day she'd received an emoticon-laden message of fawning adoration, and from there it was almost too easy to 'befriend' him. Her years of sweet-talking ad executives and concert managers before making it big had over-prepared her for this.

Feeling bold, she skipped the step where she invited Amos out for a latte and cut straight to offering a secret meeting with him in his bedroom, a classic teenage tryst. Their little secret, no need for mom and dad to know. Eventually, the plan was laid; tomorrow night, Amos would sneak her into the house, unknowingly giving the rest of the team an opportunity to infiltrate the Black residence.

The night of the caper, Flora observed the team selected to go on this mission. "You all ready?" she muttered, glancing down the street at their target location. The team was currently hiding in an SUV parked a block down.

"As we'll ever be," Emilena said quietly, checking the headpiece behind Flora's ear. "Make sure that line stays open; we need to hear how Amos lets you into the house." Unlike Flora's punk dress, the rest of them were in black catsuits and balaclavas. "And remember, we're dealing with a teenager. If push comes to shove, it might be up to you to find us a way in."

Flora nodded, gulped, and made her way down the street to Amos' house.

[bushwacked]

Back at the motel, Marcus stared at his cell phone, the device lying on the stained coffee table. The ticking of the clock on the wall behind him sounded as loud as hammers striking an anvil, his fingers tapping the table in time to its mechanism.  

Once the plan had been suggested to impersonate Xyler, some form of entertainer that Marcus had never had any reason to pay attention to, they'd decided that a small team would be best for the job. Now they just needed to wait for them to report back - a clue, a hint, something that could give them an idea of where to catch Nash Black, alone and vulnerable. Marcus tapped his claws against the wood again, waiting for the call that he prayed would come.

[Serris]

Soren chafed uncomfortably in the black catsuit and balaclava. The outfit had been designed to defeat full-spectrum infrared sensors...which had the unfortunate side effect of making them rather sweaty and hot.

He carefully watched the darkened street and house, making sure that a sudden appearance of either cops or curious bystanders wouldn't ruin their plan.

----------------

Back at the motel, Anne and Aaron had decided to sleep in shifts. The German Shepherd was asleep on the couch while Anne had kept watch by the door.

[aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato)]

Flora forced herself to stop looking around shiftily as she marched up to Amos Black's house. At least she didn't have to worry about her heartbeat going into overdrive; that's normal for a midnight fling with someone she'd never met in person.

Black's house wasn't bad. Two floors, giant lawn with a fountain, brown picket fence...it looked a little like it was built by a borderline middle-upper-class family overcompensating, but there have been worse crimes committed in architecture. She took a few deep breaths to calm her nerves as she came to a halt in front of the door. Time to get composed. It's game time.

Code:  on  

DJ Xyler: Hey there cutie. I'm outside. Let me in?
Amos Famos: omg sorrrry i didnt realize xD

The minutes passed. Several times Flora almost texted him, but she couldn't figure out what to say, so she just waited, worrying what the holdup was.
 

Code:  on  

Amos Famos: wanna no who my crush is? <3
DJ Xyler: Sure, let me know once we're in your room together
Amos Famos: i made a video
Amos Famos: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
DJ Xyler: Let's watch it once we're in your room. Quietly though.
Amos Famos: lol you just got rickrolled!!!
Amos Famos: :D
Amos Famos: ::D
Amos Famos: 8:::D
Amos Famos: lol I'm so weird
DJ Xyler: Can you please come let me in?

There was a click and someone peered at her through a slit in the door. Amos was a mousy little kid with bright red hair, and he was practically wetting himself with excitement. "H-hi there! Hi! I can't believe it's really you!" he squealed, bobbing as he spoke. "It's really you!"

Flora plastered a smile on her face. "Hi Amos! Keep your voice down!" she whispered, glancing around the parlor. "Did you disable the security system? I don't want to get in trouble."

Amos nodded excitedly and pointed to a touchpad that was blinking with a single red light. "Daddy turned it off tonight, he's out late. Mommy and Andy are asleep, but we should still keep quiet." He shifted his feet. "Can I...can I hug you?"

Flora acquiescently wrapped her arms around him. "What's your dad doing tonight? If you don't mind me asking." In all honesty, the revelation that Nash himself was out of the house made her feel 300% more comfortable with this plan.

"I dunno," Amos admitted. "Drinking, I think. Could I kiss you?"

Flora felt herself blush, despite herself. "Let's get up to your room," she grinned, scratching behind her ear and surreptitiously cutting the feed. Her teammates didn't need to listen in on what was gonna happen next.

----------------

Emilena nodded and sent Marcus a quick message: Security's down. Moving in. "Sounds like Nash is out among the town," she muttered to Soren. "Let's see if we can figure out where he is, get a coordinated strike going tonight."