[September 18, 2020. Time: 1300 GMT.] [Location: Train station at Chur, Switzerland. The station itself if nice and has information kiosks and wireless net, for all the business travelers needs. You can see the city from here.] [It has a slight rustic mountain European town feel, although it's also all slightly utilitarian: quite clean, lots of straight lines, not too fanciful.] [There's been a steady chiming of different bells to mark the hour since you arrived, apparently all are not on the same system.] [Kurt just got off the train and hasn't seen an obvious contact in the second it took to do that.] [Start.] ( SABOOC? ) ( Sure ) * Kurt walks out further into the station, looking around like a tourist, which is what he's supposed to be right now. * Kurt looks, especially, for a place to grab a map of the city. [The station is fairly busy, there are a few other tourists, these are mostly travelers making a stop from Italy to Germany or vice versa. Also a fair number of business and just local travelers. Multiple people were waiting on the platform and are largely greeting people getting off or getting on themselves.] [Kurt finds one at one of the information kiosk. Not the nicest looking thing, apparently downloadable maps get most of the funding these days, but the world still is far from paperless. * Kurt shrugs and tucks it into a pocket. Couldn't hurt to have a hard copy sometime. (Awareness check. Sense of choice.) [Kurt notices one of the people that had been standing on the platform, one who apparently did not meet the person they were waiting for, is about to brush by him. The person looks to be a fairly unremarkable business man. Mid thirties.] * Kurt waits patiently for the man to be done with his business, without ACTING like he's looking for anything untoward. [Man brushes past him, apparently in quite a hurry. Touch Awareness check!] * Kurt looks up "angrily" as the man brushes past, and opens his mouth, but doesn't scream like the rude American he is as the guy walks away. INstead, he heads for the restroom. [Man then walks off without a look back. The platform is largely emptying aside from touristy types. Some of who are going picture of Churn crazy.] [He gets to the restroom. Give me an awarenss check (hearing).] [A guy in a vaguely flamboyent sorta neo-foppish outfit, largely orange, washes his hands, and heads out, taking no real notice of Kurt.] * Kurt doesn't pay the guy too much attention. He just heads into one of the stalls, sits down, and breaks out some reading material. (Last silly awareness roll for a while. Give me two in a row, first vision/touch, second any sense) [The note says: "Check in to Hotel Freick. Visit room 206 when unwatched. Also, try the spatzel."] [Kurt notices another guy enter and apparently about to choose his stall, he notices right before the door opens.] Occupied, bub. * Kurt tucks his directions away quickly, then grabs some toilet paper for appearances, waits a bit, then flushes. [The door goes back slightly, as apparently the lock has been removed, but then stops. There's a quick muttered apology in German before the person picks a new stall.]] * Kurt exits the stall washes his hands, then unfolds his tourist map which handily has hotels and major landmarks marked out. [Kurt finds it, and finds it is easily walkable from the station.] * Kurt grins a little. "There it is. Not much of a walk. Oh well." * Kurt heads out for the happy hotel. [Kurt gets there without any trouble, the hotel has the same rustic but slightly utiliatrian look as the rest of the place. Doesn't seem a bad place to stay though.] Man, this place is almost boring in its architecture. * Kurt heads in through the main doors, bag slung over his shoulder. [Kurt heads in, the interiors are a bit more interesting, slightly cramped feeling but comfortable, lots of wood furniture, the occassional neat clock. There's a greying swedish man currently at the desk, there's a stairway up to the rooms and a different passage to the cafe.] * Kurt walks right up to the desk and looks across at the clerk. "I'm Alex Wilke. You've got a reservation for me, yes?" [There's a couple of tired looking American tourists sitting in the lobby, fair amount of luggage. "So their neutral, which means we don't have to claim we're canadian here, right?" "I still say you're a wuss for claiming to be Canadian at all." "Hey we haven't been beaten up or robbed once cause of our nationality by my system." "Wow, very impressive, can I sell you some Elephant repellent?"] * Clerk looks over the books and checks the computer. "I'm not finding it just yet Mr. Wilke, however, we do have several vacancies, so while I apologize for our apparent mistake, it is easily remedied." Ah, good. Give me your best, then. * Clerk works for a moment. "How many days will you be staying?" As long as my business takes. ["Hmph, I still say that German girl was eyeing us." "She was eyeing me, I could have hooked up if you weren't cramping my style." "Uh huh, in your dreams she just wanted your money or wanted to make a political statement." "Bah..."] Very good sir. I'll need your charging information now, although the charge will not actually appear on your until after you check out. ["Worst case, I say I'm a crazy American that's got a gun, I mean hell German's are mostly pacisfistic these days, what's going to happen." "You know, it's people like you that make me say I'm Canadian."] * Kurt slips a credit card across the counter, helpfully made out to Alex Wilke. [Clerk quickly puts it in the system and then after a bit more rigamorole gets you the key to room 301.] Enjoy your stay sir. * Kurt takes the key. "Thanks." * Kurt heads up to room 301. [The room is quite nice, not incredibly large but stylish, real painting, good view of the city, very comfortable looking bed. Descriptions of how to get room service and such. Also a rather large television on an antique looking stand doubtless designed for a different purpose.] Hey, not bad. * Kurt closes and locks the door, then begins thoroughly checking the room for bugs and security devices. [He finds no bugs, there are some features in the phone and television that could work as bugs (not presently active), and with an electronics (consumer) roll can be sure that it won't happen.] * Kurt doesn't bother disabling them for now. * Kurt calls down to room service and orders some spatzel. And a hamburger. What the hell kind of combination is that? [Kitchen accepts the order and says it'll be ten minutes and they'll make it fresh right now. There's meat and startch so apparently the kitchen thinks this is a reasonable meal.] (starch) * Kurt doesn't do much in the way of unpacking. He travels pretty light, and just leaves everything in the bag, for now. [Time passes, the food will get there if he doesn't have anything specific to do in the next ten.] * Kurt checks the peephole when room service knocks. [There's a guy who looks like he works in the kitchen, but gussied up slightly, holding a platter that's presently covered.] * Kurt opens the door slowly and lets him in, keeping on guard. * Guy comes in and lays it down, taking off the top to reveal a rather good looking hamburger and spatzel meal. He hesitates a moment before leaving. * Kurt slips the guy a twenty as he leaves. * Guy smiles as he goes. "Good day sir, enjoy your meal." Thank you for the prompt service. * Kurt sits down and tries the spatzel, and waits for the poison/hypnotic drug/whatever to kick in. [Damn good spatzel, might not be the best Kurt's ever had, but it certainly ranks up there, and he could probably specifically remember any past incident where he's had better. Nothing kicks in just yet.] * Kurt shrugs and has some more spatzel, and his burger. Nothing like a good meal before a mission. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. [Burger was fairly tasty, but nothing special. Spatzel was good all the way through. There's a little after dinner mint if he wants one.] [Still hasn't kicked in.] * Kurt pretty much ignores the mint. Why ruin a good meat and starch aftertaste. * Kurt leaves the tray in the retrieval area, then goes to the door raises one hand in front of himself, index and middle fingers pointed up, whispers something probably nonsensical, and disappears. A moment later, the door opens and shuts entirely on its own. [Third floor hallway is empty, he can hear the Americans talking on the second floor, as they haul up their luggage.] * Kurt waits patiently for the americans to get into their damn room. [They finish up fairly quickly.] * Kurt looks around for any staff or other temporary residents. (Awareness roll on that) [Kurt thinks he's got an easy window of opportunity here.] * Kurt knocks lightly on the door. [Door opens, there's a fairly attractive Swiss woman behind it blond, late 20s, a little gaunt. Medical (diagnosis) roll if you desire. She turns to walk back into the room, gesturing for Kurt to follow.] [Oh, and give me a +4 smell awareness roll if you want.] * Kurt quickly steps through the crack in the door. [Woman takes a seat inside the room, smaller than Kurt's but also nicely adorned. Has an oddly lived in feel, as if it doesn't change hands regularly. There's a big comfortable looking bed, various personal items and knicknacks around the room including some pictures of the woman. Bathroom door is open and has fair number of personal toliettries, not hotel size at all, closet door is closed.] * Kurt speaks, but remains thus far invisible. "This is the place, yes?" * Woman nods and asks quietly. "Did you find your googles after we last met?" There's an obvious testing quality to the tone. I did. Right where you said they'd be. * Woman nods again and seems to relax slightly. "Good then, glad to hear your well, close the door. Oh, and could you quickly check if any plumber-types have been here, I've tried to check myself, but I'm not skilled enough to be sure." * Kurt closes the door, then begins patiently sweeping the room for bugs. * Woman wipes her brow with a slightly shakey hand as he works. (Medical check, -4 (diagnosis)) [Kurt finds one hidden camera in a light fixture in the ceiling. Seems to be off at the moment.] There's one, but it's not active. [Kurt also thinks this woman is fairly obviously using a designer drug currently rather popular in Europe. The actual physical health effects are pretty marginal, although it tends to lead to a slightly out of it delerium like state a lot of the time, slight shakes, sweating, and most prominently occassional blackouts and memory loss. Supposedly not chemically addictive.] * Woman nods. "Where? And probably best to leave it there then, just make sure it stays off." The light fixture. Not a bad place to put it, really. Most people don't ever look up. * Woman glances up from her seat on the bed to the fixture, pretty directly overhead, she smirks slightly. "I'll have to remember that in the future." She the looks back to Kurt. "So, it appears my calculated risk paid off. I hope the information was of some help to you, seems like your team did well enough, considering." We didn't have a way to stop the explosion, sadly. Only fifty three deaths in two trains isn't bad. I captured the leader, too. * Woman nods. "I noticed, he'll probably talk, his reputation as a mercenary is only so useful if he spends the rest of his life in jail. I did help Kelvin get away, but one does what one must to keep a good reputation. Hopefully the EU can catch him on their own." Though whether they can hold a teleporter that can teleport objects independently of himself is up for grabs. * Woman nods again. "Depends who holds them. I've found some anti-mystical measures to be frustratingly effective." (them->him) Doubtless. I've never met someone quite so good at body swapping as you. The body on that boat was annoyingly weak. * Woman grins slightly. "Thank you. Your temporary escape caused a few problems for me, but well worth the price for acquiring the services of one such as you I think." * Woman notices her hand shaking slightly and secures it with her other hand. [Oh and still no obvious spatzel drug effects.] Probably. If it happens again, though, I won't show such restraint. Been dabbling in drugs with someone else's body? I'd have tried picking up Shintenshin no Jutsu myself, but I have no aptitude for shadow techniques at all. I couldn't even manage Kage Bunshin no Jutsu. Hardly. I'd never touch the stuff. Useful in a victim though, the police would be luck to get out of her what she had for breakfest, and she's not likely to notice the swap in the first place. So what do you need someone of my skils for, anyway? Well first, is there anything you're not willing to do? As I said before, I am willing to respect any moral or professional lines you won't cross. I don't kill innocents or defenseless people. That's about it, really. * Woman nods. "Not a problem then. Although just to be clear, what's your standard on what qualifies an innocent?" Anybody not able to defend themselves. Anybody rich enough to hire competent bodyguards does not qualify. Good, so corporate or government facilities aren't problematic then? Not at all. Then I have two missions for you, one a minor corporate espionage job admittedly against a hard target, the second a larger scale one, far more dangerous, that won't occur for a few weeks at least. Or a simple retaliatory assassination job if I happen to die while implementing my plans. Vengeance from beyond the grave. I can deal. So, gimme the details. Details on the second job will wait a bit, I'll contact you again or have an associate contact you if I'm dead. As for the first mission.... I need a fair amount of intelligence on the corporation Vanguard Aerospace. They do deal in the mystical and apparently have their own internal security force as they don't use the SCSC (standard corp regularly hired out for special antimystical protection, good reptuation). I've contracted a free-lance hacker mage to get some tools, but will need a more skilled operative to have them actually used. Tools? * Woman nods a grabs a purse from the bed. She dumps out the contents and in addition to an array of standard purse crap there's a thin pale grey patch, dull on one side, obvious circutry on the other, there's also what looks like an I Ching machine (about the size of a calculator) with a reciept printer attached, finally there's a black box with a whole mix of ports around its sides as well as a few wires that could apparently be easily attached to a spliced cable. ( That cuold apparently be ) (that could apparently be easily attached to a spliced cable.) These will take some explanation. * Woman nods. "There office in Hong Kong is holding a conference from September 22nd through 26th. Step one, you'll need to attach this patch (the grey patch) to a visitors laptop while they're logging in to the local server. It has to be external I'm told, internal network logins wouldn't work the hacker assured me." While they're actually logging in? * Woman nods. "Anywhere on the laptop or datapad will do. And I'm told the back of the patch can be colored if that would help, but we need the login, password, and any special information the login software sends. And we need it off when it's inserted into the device, once it travels through the air it's encrypted." Okay. Step two, penetrate Vanguard's physical security and find their core computer rooms. Anything with a a few numbers of active mainframe and network servers will do. I'll leave the specifics of your intrusion to you. ( That's going to be fun. Once there, you'll need to temporarily knock down any mystical defenses they have. ::indicates the I Ching with the printer:: Stick this against the machine and hit this button. ::she indicates one, big and green and easy to remember:: It'll take a little while to generate the right ward, and you need to remain in contact while it works. Unfortunately I'm told it might nullify some of the users powers while it works, but I'm assured will take a minute, tops. ( while it works, but ) (but I'm assured will take a minute, tops.) Should be doable. * Woman nods. "Then attach this device ::indicates the black box:: internally. Somewhere hard to notice it ideally. Unless you've got any technical skill it'll probably be easiest to just attach these two clips directly to an exposed cable, or just take the insulation off an unexposed one." [Woman gives you the three devices.] [Still no spatzel effects.] Fun. Don't suppose you happen to know where I can pick up some chloroform? * Woman stands up and walks over to the closet. "Once that's done, clean up and get out. If you think you've been detected be sure to blow something up or establish some other apparent cover mission." She then smirks slightly as she gets to the closet. "How much do you need?" Not too much. A small flask oughta do it. * Woman then opens up the closet and drags out a duffle bag, with some apparent effort. [Smell awareness check, -4] [Kurt notices a slight smell of dried blood, and, amusingly enough, chloroform, from the bag.] Heh. Shoulda known. * Woman then grabs bottle from the closet, pours a little near the top, and press it down against the bag. After a few seconds she opens it, revealing a slightly battle scarred man in his late forties but quite fit. He's actually in ninja intrusion type garb. [To recognize, occult or other skill you can justify. Free specialty and a -2 bonus on top of that.] * Kurt shakes his head sadly. "You've really got a thing for us." * Woman grins up. "He's your cover identity. I'd prefer a completely unnoticed job, but conveniently enough this man has offered to pull the exact same job for a Paragene Solutions. So if Vanguard discovers what happens, they won't trace the job back to either of us." [The guy is Jeb Ngyun. Mixed Vietnamese and American ancestry. Real nasty sort of ninja, if you're willing to give him that title. Tends to be effective but is both bloody and sloopy about half the time. Not too bad when he's sober, but you'll be lucky to meet him in that state. His secret shame is that he's desperately afraid of rabbits.] Okay, so I'm going as poor Jeb here. * Woman nods. "And as I've said before, I'd prefer you not be seen at all, but if you think you've been detected, be sure you know it's him." Not a problem. I could duplicate this guy without even trying. I gather you'll be keeping him under wraps for a while? Until a bit after you'll done. He'll turn over as much information as suits me, and then it'd probably be simplest to just kill him, not like he lacks for enemies. That a problem? There are other ways but they entail some risk. * Woman stands up and goes to the bathroom as she speaks. "Feel free to study him as necessary, I'll pour some of this into a smaller bottle for you." No, he's messy and stupid. Feel free to kill him. * Woman returns and hands Kurt a small cleaned out conditioner bottle, now largely full of chloroform. It's apparently for dry female dyed hair. Thanks. Excellent, will do. ::she grins:: Might even find someone to pay me to do it. So that's all I got. You order the spatzel? * Kurt tucks it into a pocket. Yeah, I did. You drug it? * Woman smiles. "Not this time. This time I just needed to give you a reason for staying at this hotel. They actually mention it in the guide books. If someone finds you were here later I wouldn't want them thinking that looking into other motives to use this hotel, such as the owner's mistress." Good enough. Gimme Jeb's wallet, willya? I'm gonna need his docs if I'm gonna masquerade as him. Just in case. * Woman searches Jeb for a moment and then tosses it up to Kurt. "He keeps it in a left jacket pocket, for the record." She then takes some cash from her purse and puts it in that pocket. "Might need this later." [Wallet has a few fake ids and about everything you expect. * Kurt nods and stuffs the wallet in his left vest pocket. "Done. I'll hang out here for a couple days, then fly to hong kong." Enjoy your stay. I'll quit town just as soon as I make a few arrangements and move the body, unless you've got any more need for me. Not really. I assume you'll contact me, or not, once this gig is up. * Woman nods as she begins to clean up the room. "Got a prefered method?" Whatever, really. Face to face is always best, but you've got a different face every time. Just, uh, not on a boat/ * Woman smiles. "Deal." (Okay, Kurt can do what he wants now, but he's got sufficient skill that I'm willing to just assume he's competant about keeping cover and such) [And Kurt has fun as a tourist. End!]