Date 23/12/2059, Location 40.08930, 67.73912

Once they were all assembled back into the truck, they set off for the address indicated. It wasn't a long drive, perhaps only four kilometres, but driving through the streets after nightfall was enough to show them a different world. There were no pedestrians traveling the streets, and any groups they saw on street corners or outside buildings numbered at least a dozen. Several of them had clubs or knives clearly visible, and a few with guns. The streets were unlit, with only the intermittent moonlight from the heavily clouded sky illuminating the roads – not that this bothered Marius, of course.

Twenty minutes later they pulled into the southern part of Tashkent University and were waved at by a young man wearing a bandana over his lower face. As the truck pulled up, he confirmed that Odemyod had sent them, and then directed them to a large structure to the side of a residential block. Maybe in the past it had housed the tractor or facility vehicles for keeping the grounds in order – but now, it made a decent place to keep the truck out of sight. The young man pulled the large doors closed, then beckoned them to follow him. Leaving behind the weapons in the locked vehicle, they took only sidearms with them and followed him into the squalid student residence.

No students were to be seen, but the place was teeming – with refugees by the looks of things. Families of four or five were crammed into one-bed rooms, children ran up and down the corridors even this late at night, and the stench of hundreds of unwashed bodies filled the air. As they followed their guide they saw families cooking on bare patches of concrete in the rooms, using a small space where they'd cut up the lino to expose the construction slabs as a cooking mat. All of the cauldrons and pans appeared to be cooking watery looking soups and stews, or thin and straggly looking noodles.

Before long a small troop of children were following the team, curious about the strangers who had come to their world. They chattered away in variety of languages, pointing at the various team members as they did so. After a few minutes, they made it to the fifth floor, and to a set of three rooms that were empty of other people. The guide waved them into the rooms, two into each. Personal effects littered the walls and shelves, and it looked like they had been hastily evicted from their residence. Where were they? Nobody in the block seemed to care, and their guide didn't appear to, either. After exploring a little, and ensuring they were safe, Kai, Aswon and Shimazu bedded down in the rooms, and Marius, Hunter and Tadibya returned to the truck.

Once back safely in the vehicle, Tadibya flew out of her body, her astral form darting like quicksilver across the land towards the location of the temple. The earth glowed beneath her, teeming with life and mana, and after a half hour of searching the mountains she realised that without better information, and a tighter fix, it would take her hours of searching to find the place – and that would weaken her link between astral and physical form so much that even the simplest of spells would be impossible to cast. On her way back, she did spy the mine, a vast gash on the landscape that made a taint in astral space. It was guarded by a number of elementals who patrolled the facility, looking for intruders. She veered to one side, and saw more elementals guarding the large hydro-electric facility further across the hillside from the mine.

Hunter meanwhile was plugged into his computer, making use of the sat uplink and conducting a number of searches on the temple and the area. His searches took several hours and it was past 2am by the time he'd finished – but he'd found a probable location of the target building – it was the only "9th century Transoxania period" building referenced in old texts in university archives that had made it through the crash of '29. He'd also pulled up maps of the area, and had merged the information together and found some topographical information that should help them. Eventually, he, too, settled down to sleep.

In the morning, they reconvened and shared information and began to plan. Marius called his friend Georgi, a smuggler and provider of telesma and magical materials based in Tbilisi, the former capital of Georgia and now one of the largest cities in the Trans Caucasus League. Georgi expressed some surprise, having heard on the grapevine that Marius was dead in a helicopter crash – at which point Marius asked him to keep this as the official version, and not let others know he was still alive.

Marius asked Georgi if they might find some interesting samples in the mountains, giving the general location they were heading to. After putting him on speaker phone, and having Georgi describe the techniques a little, Tadibya piped up, and spoke with him at length, and it soon became clear that she was well versed with gathering of arcane materials in various forms. She and Georgi spoke for some time, identifying a number of crystalline geodes and metallic salts that were potentially findable in the mountains, and of use to him – if the team could get him a reasonable supply.

Next up, they did a quick search for some shops they could get some outdoor gear in, and then scrappers and vehicle facilities in Tashkent, quickly identifying three places that did repair work on all manner of vehicles. 'Gertaf Fural-Harak' had a facility on the south east side of the city near the airport, 'Asir Mohammad Al Jafir' was based in the north east of the city, and 'Kiril Petronovich' was in the south west, near the Silk Road. After much discussion, they decided to go to the Petronovich facility. The last thing they did before leaving was to get Tadibya to create several bowls of fresh fruit and food, which they gave to the people they'd displaced the night before – though it was hard to get them to accept the gift. They pulled out of the university grounds just before lunchtime and headed towards the Silk Road.

The truck carried them down to the scrap facility, a site of several acres just off the glistening highway of the New Silk Road. The corporate-built blacktop highway was three lanes to either side of the robust concrete barriers here, and heavy transport trucks and convoys belted down the road at speed in both directions, carrying corporate goods from east to west under heavy guard. The facility lay to the side of the highway, accessible from a major intersection and short side road, and had a high fence topped with barbed wire. The massive gates at the front were swung wide open into a rough, potholed and muddy car park which was home to a number of transport vehicles and pickup trucks, and they could see sparks from cut metal lighting up the insides of the workshops.

As they got out of the truck, the noise and the smell hit them – industrial pollutants, battery acid, oil, hot metal, burning clutches. The pounding of the frag machines reverberated across the site as massive machinery rendered metal down into tiny pieces ready to be taken to the smelters. Stacks of cars were piled six high in places, and large mobile cranes trundled around piling up new deliveries and feeding the hopper of the fraggers with scrap metal. A machine over to one side compressed material down into cubes of tightly woven metal – as Tadibya's gaze flickered over it, she shuddered and her face paled slightly. She could feel the aura of fear and despair around the machine. Bad things had happened to people there, over a period of time.

They spotted a converted shipping container, and Kai headed over that way with Marius, the rest of the team waiting at the truck. Inside was a mass of papers, overflowing ashtrays, office-wheeled chairs with the stuffing leaking out of holes, fading yellow calendars and battered filing cabinets holding ancient records. Everything looked old, cheap and well past its best. Behind the desk was a man in his 40s, broad shouldered and solidly built. His hands were rough and calloused, and there were signs of faded tattoos on his arms, hidden under the thick and coarse black hair.

As they approached the desk, the man waved for them to pull over some chairs, and took a moment to examine them. His eyes narrowed slightly as he caught sight of the jacks in the back of Marius's neck, and he sat back in his seat, gesturing to them to begin.

Kai introduced himself, but quickly realised that his Russian wasn't up to the job, and after a nod, swapped to English, and explained to him that they were new in town, and had a vehicle that had been through a few scrapes and tight corners, and would greatly benefit from a bit of tender loving care from a skilled craftsman. He gave Marius a wink, signalling him to take over the conversation. Marius explained that they were after three key systems – a fix to their electronic counter measures module, damaged by the short circuit after the zapper attack, some extra armour added to the vehicle, and last of all – a nitrous oxide system to be added for that extra burst of speed when required.

Kiril responded in broken English, asking to see the truck so he could work out a cost. The three of them came back to the truck, and first of all Kiril asked to see inside the truck, at the damaged ECM module. Kai repeated his request back to him – making Kiril look at him a little oddly. But, by the time the truck door was opened, the rest of the team had hidden the guns and other hardware, having heard Kai speak over the open commlink. Kiril squirreled himself down into the electronics bay, his feet facing up the backrest of the seat and pointing at the roof and with a grunt pulled out the module. Giving it a quick sniff, he smiled and then leant out of the truck door. Placing two fingers in the corner of his mouth, he let out a piercing whistle, attracting the attention of the employees scattered around the near part of the yard. He waved one over, and passed him the part, telling him to get the power rectifiers checked out and replaced, along with the power input module.

Next, he padded around the vehicle, examining the bodywork, suspension and thickness of the existing armour. From a pocket he pulled out a set of digital callipers and started to take measurements of various places. "Hmm, 20mm, general purpose. Russian manufacture. Rolled chromium steel, Krupp process. Good condition. You need more than this?" He cocked an eyebrow at Marius.

"Yes, we're looking to get another 30mm on top, general coverage, all sides. The shocks have plenty of travel left, and we generally travel light, but with high value cargo – so we need the extra security. We could probably add as much as another 100mm on top and the engine would still be fine – but it'd handle like a tractor. So, 30mm seems reasonable. Can you get stock and fit it?"

Kiril nodded quickly, and told them he had various vehicles with such systems that he could remove the armour from and add to theirs – but it would take some time to cut and remove… it was after all, solid stuff. They wandered back to the office, and Kiril worked out some costs for the hardware. After punching numbers into the ancient calculator, he told them he would want around eight and a half thousand for the armour plates, and around ten and a half thousand for the nitrous oxide system. But, because they were not known in town, and had no rep – he needed the money upfront, and would only hold the stock for two weeks.

Kai broadened his smile, interlaced his hands and began his negotiations – and soon they had settled on sixty percent up front and a fourteen day return time. Marius headed back to the truck to let the others know, and found them in a discussion about their journey up into the mountains.

It turned out that both Tadibya and Hunter were reasonably proficient with riding motorbikes, and they were wondering if they could get a couple of cheap bikes here to give them extra mobility up in the highlands. The tactical utility was immediately obvious, so they all headed over to meet Kai, who was just coming out from Kiril's office, shaking the scrapper's hand.

They explained their thoughts and Kai agreed, and asked Kiril if he had any bikes to sell? Kiril nodded his head after examining the whole team, and led them round the back of the office, behind a large stack of cars and showed them a rack of half a dozen scrambler type bikes. Each was obviously the same initial model, yet no two looked alike – they'd all been repaired with whatever parts came to hand, and custom fittings were everywhere.

Kiril opened the bidding at twenty thousand per bike, which made the team wince a little. Conversation went back and forth a little, then Kai quietly asked Aswon to go grab a bottle of Armenian Vodka from the truck. Kiril examined the bottle and nipped back to the office for some shot glasses. On his return he pulled out a lighter, and after setting up the shots, set them on fire, slamming his on the bonnet of a car before throwing the burning liquid into his mouth. The team couldn't help but notice the purple tinge to the flame from the top of the burning vodka, but followed suit. Moments later several of them were gasping for breath as the industrial strength paint stripper went to work on their throats and digestive systems.

Kiril smacked his lips together though, and pronounced it "Smooth! Very good!" and proceeded to set up another set of drinks. Kai and Kiril continued to throw back shots, and negotiations took place in between each round. Kai was starting to look a little red-eyed by the fourth shot, but at least had gotten the price down to twelve and a half thousand each for two bikes with full tanks, and an extra thousand to cover the cost of an external rack for them to be mounted along with the armour. Amongst the negotiations and the chatting back and forth, Kai had also learned that Tashkent was split into large blocks. The Russian Vory held dominion over the North West part of town, Maaraei being part of this faction. The Red Lantern Triad controlled operations in the North East part of the city – where one of the other scrappers worked. And the Afghan-based Kabul Maffiya controlled the south east of town, in the area around the airport. The south west, and a few other areas were independent or disputed, which made life interesting sometimes. Kai marked the general positions on his map of the city, continuing his negotiations with Kiril, who did not seem to be affected by the vodka at all.

A firm handshake and the deal was done, and the team ushered a slightly wobbly Kai back to the truck. Two of the Hyundai off-road scramblers were wheeled over and lifted into the back of the truck, almost completely filling the floor space in the living compartment. Once settled in, they headed in to town for the next items on their shopping list.

They stopped at a large department store near the main road, and purchased tents, sleeping bags, stoves and a host of other camping gear – all useful stuff in of itself – to facilitate their disguise as "mountain hikers". Nothing on their shopping list was restricted, so they had no issues here, and their fake identities held up to the scrutiny of the checkout systems, letting them pay for their goods like regular people. The equipment was expensive – more expensive than they were expecting – but not grossly so. Probably a factor of location and specialist interest leading to a very small market share… Further down the road, they found a motorbike showroom, and were able to get a set of armoured riding overalls for Tadibya and Hunter.

They continued their search for another hour as they checked the centre of Tashkent for some kind of long-duration surveillance drone. Here they rapidly found themselves out of luck. Not a single drone specialist was to be found in Tashkent, and no drones were for sale inside the corporate centre, or without. They asked around, and determined that whilst they were not illegal, the corps purchased their drones through their own channels – and discouraged others from stocking them. After a few stores had trouble renewing their leases, the message had gotten out – and there just weren't drones to be found here. There would of course be someone, somewhere in the city that sold them – there was no way the corps would have that much control – but without being clued in on the local shadow scene, they had no way of knowing who or were.

Shimazu placed a called to Saito, advising him of their issue, and wondering if he could help. Saito messaged back asking Shimazu to sit tight for a bit, and he would see about setting up a meeting. Sure enough, a short while later, Saito returned the call and gave Shimazu an address in the south west portion of town

The team made their way down, back past Kiril's yard and into a maze of light industrial units and warehouses. Smog filled the air and the streets were packed with honking vans and small goods vehicles scurrying about with their wares. After a short hunt they found the warehouse of Sogdian Siu. After verifying their identities, they were welcomed into his warehouse. The darkened interior was full of gloomy shadows, with the limited lighting showing scores of industrial pallet racking from floor to ceiling, with all manner of drones and devices, spare parts and burnt out wrecks.

Marius laid out their requirements, and Sogdian had a check over his inventory, before bringing over two drones that looked to be in good repair. The first drone was a Cyberspace Designs "Dalmatian", a fairly stock security type. It was a vector thrust design with limited hover capability – somewhat stealthy in operation, but not hugely fast. It handled well though, and had an average set of sensors and was normally quite cheap, but noted for having a pretty good pilot interface that made operations nice and easy. The second drone was a Renraku "Elemental" rotor-drone, a large metallic sphere suspended underneath duel four bladed rotor assemblies. No faster than the Dalmation, and with only half the fuel capacity, it none the less had double the endurance due to the design. It had the stock sensors and robotic pilot straight from the catalogue, with no modifications. Sogdian wanted thirty thousand for both drones, but would supply both with full tanks. After a quick discussion, the team ponied up the Nuyen, and crammed the drones into the back of the truck, on the larger bunk. It was a fight to get them in and over the motorbikes that filled the small living area, but after a couple of minutes of grunt work, they managed. Just as they were about to leave, Marius asked Sogdian if he had any signal amplifiers for rigger control systems. Seeing him shake his head, he asked him to keep an eye out for one, saying he had cash waiting if he got one…

Now having burnt through a good proportion of their pay from the last job, they headed south out of town on the Silk Road, heading up into the mountains. They trundled south for a good few kilometres, before turning off the major highway and leaving the corporate transports and multi-lane highway with a smooth surface behind. The transition was startling – inside a few minutes they had dropped onto a single lane road, badly potted and cracked. People were travelling barefoot on the road, weighed down with huge loads of wheat and vegetables. Donkeys and horses pulled wooden wagons up the road, yet the drovers chattering away on modern looking wrist-comms, and sometimes working on heat exchanger units for the insulated greenhouses that the crops were growing in. As they got further into the agricultural area, they noticed more and more of the farm workers were Chinese or Chinese-descended – reminding them how close they were to the western end of China.

They followed the road up to Angren, discovering a weird ghost town. The city that could easily house over a hundred and twenty thousand had a population that was less than a quarter of that. Vast blocks were empty and boarded up, covered in graffiti. Other parts were sparsely occupied, tiny enclaves of humanity in a concrete wilderness. They pulled into an abandoned area and set up the Dalmatian drone, then Marius took control and sent the drone spiralling up into the sky, examining the feed from the sensor platform. He headed north, keeping clear of the mine workings, but examining it from a side angle. The place seemed busy, with trucks and people everywhere, conveyor belts bringing up a constant stream of rocks from down below and sending them into covered processing buildings. A zoom in showed a label over one of the warehouses which read "No. 2 Bentonite store". Hunter had a quick think, and then advised them that it was a chemical that had very good water absorption properties. It was used to make mundane things like kitty litter and was very useful in making wines, but also was a key substance for most mining operations to deal with ground water and to control seepage in deep shafts. Given the amount of oil and gas drilling in the area, it probably helped to have a local source, and the mine was certainly looking busy.

As they flew around and Marius got used to the handling characteristics of the drone, he spotted extensive security scanners and cameras in the air, both on the mine which was operated by Eastern Tiger Corporation, and the Dam, operated by Shiawaise Environmental. Shiawaise was a AAA company, granting them extra-territorial status, whilst ETC was a large A rated corp, and bound by national laws. Not that it really mattered out here of course – the local police force was probably corrupt and in one or the other companies' pockets, and would ignore anything they did short of bombing the town. Maybe not even that…

They bypassed the mine and the dam, travelling on the road up into the mountains. Closing in on the site, and with better information now on the exact location, Tadibya went for another astral scout. She soon found the temple, half buried in the mountain side, but with a large section of the slope having recently been shaken loose by an earthquake, it seems, and exposing part of the structure. Of more immediate concern were two large marquee tents pitched on the valley floor below it, each of which could hold perhaps a dozen people at most. There were a couple of open sided shelters that looked to have scientific equipment laid out on them, and alongside was a heavy transport and powerful looking cab, all of which had chunky off-road tyres. It must have still been an arse getting the vehicle up this narrow road and turned around, but that almost certainly meant that the other team had a rigger, just like Marius.

The team pulled the truck off into the next valley, driving up so they were parallel to the temple team, got out their tents and set up, and even did a little spot of hiking around the place that evening, to establish their credentials – and getting to scope out the mountain ridges and likely surveillance points of course.

As night settled, they started to work on their plans for how they were going to carry out the job.