Wednesday 30/3/2061, Location: 4.84863, 7.03922, Time 06:00

The team were awoken by a conference call from Hunter – or at least half of them were. Aswon and Tads were already awake, of course, but Shimazu, Kai and Marius were roused from their slumber by the insistent chirping from their commlink.

"Wakey wakey, chummers. Some of us have been working all night, so I don't want to hear any moaning!" There was an edge of glee in Hunter's voice, and his malformed face loomed large on the tiny screens of the commlinks as he bent in as close as he could to study his own view, grinning at the slightly vacant look on Kai's face. "So, I've got some good news. I have a definite fix on some locations in the tower. Found a press conference, with good solid camera work – the briefing room is on the ninth floor in the south-west corner, confirmed by multiple key buildings in the background. The boardroom was set up to announce a new product, and had Angel centre-stage, giving a canned speech about how awesome it was. But during it, she describes some stuff going on in her office, and points directly upwards, then spends a minute describing how some key activity went on not three metres from where they're giving the conference. There's a couple of other indicators in the speech as well, but it's clear that she's not just pointing to the floor above, but specifically the room directly above the boardroom. So that puts her office on the south-west corner on the tenth floor, with a high degree of confidence."

"Nice work Hunter – that will narrow down the search a lot." Aswon nodded at his own commlink in approval.

"I've also been digging around on the matrix, and found a document tucked away in a SIG on Shadowland, that led me to the formula for this Plasteel-7 catalyst. I've checked out the chemicals, and we've got some coming – gonna take a few days to arrive, but we should have everything we need to mix up a tank full of gunk. The bad news is that it's a bit of a tricky set of chemical reactions to manage – the good news is that we don't need any rare or esoteric equipment to do it, it's all kitchen sink kinda stuff. So as long as you're careful, Aswon, we should be able to get it done using very basic facilities."

"That is good news – that at least gives us a relatively safe in, or out, to the compound, without using any magic. Though I've not seen any reason why we should need that…"

"Actually, there is a little wrinkle. Once you were up, I went for a scout, checking up on the compound and the security forces. The first thing I discovered is that there is some magical defences there – a pretty powerful air elemental that patrols around the inside of the wall at quite high speed. It was a pain to spot, because they have the trees pressed right up against the wall, and it's moving through the branches and the small gap to the wall, keeping an eye on the perimeter – I was lucky to catch it transitioning across the golf course area where the trees are a little thinner. But it's my guess that its set to report in if it sees any magical activity."

"Well, crap. That means you can't banish it or kill it with magic, right? It'd be detected by its summoner or controller?"

"Actually, probably not, Kai." Aswon glanced over at Tads who just shook her head at him, then indicated for him to continue. "The usual MO for elementals is to bind them to a site for a year and a day – some kind of weird mystic thing about that time frame. When they get bound, they leave the control of the summoner, and don't seem to count as one of their elementals any more – so they lose that sense of what's going on, and can't tell if they're being attacked or not. So if we do attack the elemental, if nobody sees then we're potentially good."

"It has to do with the morphic ability of the self to associate with the entities you've called from the plane of Gaia, and…." Tads stopped, aware that she wasn't making much sense to most of them. "Um… you only have so much brain space to strike bargains with spirits or elementals. Once your brain is full, you can only get a new one by releasing an old one. So you're limited with how many spirits you can control at once. But putting an elemental on a service like this, letting it wander around remotely from you frees up that space, so you can call more spirits to do other things with."

"The main thing we need to be thinking about though is that this Novatech office seems to take security seriously – they're certainly strong on their procedures. So I would say it's highly likely that the elemental will report in after each circuit to the guard captain, or the security office or something. At least that's the worst thing it could do from our point of view." Aswon bared his fangs in a grimace. "So that's what we should assume they HAVE done, until we learn otherwise. But anyway – sorry, Tads – you were saying something about tailing people?"

"Yes, there's a shift change just before dawn. The outbound staff get on a bunch of coaches and they set off around the city – it sounds exactly the same as the protest coaches from yesterday as you described it, Aswon. They head out to a couple of landmarks in each district, places where the bus can stop easily, and a bunch of people get off and then scatter back to their homes. They're all lower-class areas – though that's not saying much here… Nearly all of them are what I'd term as black-local – they look like Nigerians as far as I can see and have the same skin tone and hair as Aswon, though nobody is as tall as him! There were a couple of Orks and a Dwarf in there, all local, and I saw two white people, but they were dressed much the same way. So I think they were all maintenance staff or cleaners, or something like that – they didn't look to be in higher-class jobs, from what I could see."

Kai was about to respond when there was a sudden rap on the door, a series of five knocks delivered with a rapid pace. Raising a finger to his lips he warned the others on the call to be quiet, then motioned with his head to Shimazu, watching as the bodyguard padded across the room towards the door, slipping out a knife from its concealed position.

"ROOM SERVICE!" The voice was local, the accent thick and not particularly well cultured. It also didn't sound right, didn't have the appropriate tone of voice for someone working in the service industry. More importantly, Kai knew that he hadn't ordered any room service – and a quick glance at Shimazu revealed that he didn't know anything about it, either. Kai took a quick calming breath, then smoothed his expression into a skein of normality then gave another brief nod to Shimazu, watching as the bodyguard pulled the door open carefully. It revealed a short and somewhat stocky Nigerian, wearing a red hoody, decorated with abstract representations of grizzly bears and wolves – almost Shamanic in style. A short but wiry goatee was the only hair on his head, which only emphasised the broadness of his face. Dark brown and slightly bulging eyes stared at Shimazu coldly before they flicked over to Kai for a quick glance, then shifted around as much of the room as he could see from his position by the door. Large, full lips opened, revealing a set of white and even teeth in dark pink gums.

"Da police are coming for you. You are not safe here. I can get you out, but it will cost you. You must decide quickly." His voice was quieter now, but no less intense.

The speech was delivered without any niceties or pre-amble, and the man made no move to enter the room. His face remained impassive, giving away nothing about his emotions or intent. Kai glanced up and down, taking in his dirty and dusty footwear and powerful stance, but strangely he didn't feel threatened either by the man or what he had to say.

"And who are you?"

"I am Mr. Musa. You are in trouble, and you need to get out of here." As Musa replied, Kai could see Shimazu's eyes widen and his face go slightly glassy as he dropped into astral space, assensing their guest and trying to pierce any masking he might have in place. "I can get you out of here. But it will not be cheap." Shimazu turned his head slightly and caught Kai's attention.

"Seems legit. He believes what he's saying, and there's a sense of urgency."

Kai took a moment to process this. Shimazu was as powerful as Tads was in his own way, and with the intense psychological training course he'd undertaken in Egypt he was pretty adept at reading people and determining their motivations and intentions. So if Shimazu thought he was legit, then there was a good chance he was – or he was powerful enough to cloak his intentions from him, and that made it just as bad and worrisome.

"Hunter, got to go. The rest of you, grab your bags – now. We're out of here." He looked up from his commlink. "Ok, Mr. Musa. So what's the deal?"

"You go out of the window. Not down da stairs. They are watching for you. You must go quiet, I meet you outside."

"Can I get your number?" Kai called out as Musa turned to leave.

"No." He didn't stop moving and headed down the corridor, broad shoulders swinging, his squat torso making him look like he filled the corridor of the cheap hotel.

Kai and Shimazu grabbed their meagre possessions, glad that they hadn't bought a lot of gear into the city with them, and then headed into the adjacent room where Aswon, Tads and Marius had just finished their own packing.

"What's going on?"

"Someone local, Aswon, said that the police are coming for us – and we need to bail, but he can get us out, for a cost. Shimazu assensed him and thought he was on the level, so in the absence of anything to prove otherwise, we're going to trust him – for now."

"Right then… let's go, I suppose." Aswon headed for the door out into the corridor, but Kai put a hand in front of him to stop him in his tracks.

"Nope – gotta go out the window, said the front desk would turn us in, or we'd get caught if we went out the front."

"Fraks sake! Fine… at least we're only on the first floor." Aswon turned and grabbed the window, pulling it up until it jammed on the safety catches that had been installed. Shimazu saw him struggling and moved over to the other side, and between them they pulled upwards until the catches gave way, letting the window slide up fully. Aswon hopped out first, dropping the four metres to the ground and landing light as a feather, then moving over a little to let Shimazu repeat the same feat. Marius leant out and lowered the case holding his drone as far as possible and then released the handle – allowing Aswon and Shimazu to catch it deftly. A few seconds later the pilot swung himself out of the window, lowering himself carefully until just his hands were on the window-ledge and then let go.

Half a second later, he felt hand grab him from both sides as Aswon and Shimazu intercepted him, slowing him and letting him land gently enough on the ground that there was no risk to his legs. Kai followed a moment later, and the pair repeated their tactic. Last of all, Tads crouched on the window ledge, then cast a spell, levitating calmly out into the air and pulling the window closed behind her, then descending in a graceful fashion to the ground and letting the spell drop, before quickly wiping away the traces of the low-force spell.

They grabbed their bags and headed out of the back-lot of the hotel, working around the bins and drains and quickly checked the lane that ran down the side of the building. A mini-van was waiting there with the engine running, and when they appeared, Mr Musa leant out of the driver's window and waved to them.

"Get in, quickly. We must go." He didn't wait, but pulled his head inside and the window smoothly rose back into place, while the sliding door to the rear popped over, inviting them to board the vehicle. With one quick last glance at each other, they climbed in – but Kai and Shimazu headed around to join him in the front seat, while Tads, Marius and Aswon grabbed all the luggage into the back.

Once inside, Musa put the van into gear and pulled out into traffic, cutting up a beaten-up old delivery trike which honked at him angrily. The team watched as a police cruiser headed past them on the opposite side of the road, craning their necks to see if it was heading into the hotel – but it continued sedately up the street.

"Aswon, watch my body a moment please," Tads muttered quietly, then projected out of her body, vaulting into the sky above it and studying it carefully in astral space, trying to get a 'feel' for it. It wasn't moving fast and seemed to have a little way to go until it reached a turning point. A blink of an eye later she was at the tilt-wing, manifesting in front of Hunter and giving him a start.

"Team in a van, guy called Musa, said the police were coming, will check back later, bye." She took an extra heartbeat to drop off a spirit with Hunter, asking it to guard and protect him for the day and then blinked back to the middle of the city, slowing down just as the van reached the corner and turned to the east. Fortunately it was slow enough that she could jump back into her body with no hassle at all, giving Aswon a smile as she opened her eyes. "Gave Hunter a brief message, left a spirit with him." Aswon nodded, reassured it was actually her back in her body and not something else, and returned to watching the city out of the windows.

"So Mr. Musa – you said this was going to cost us?"

"Yes. Two thousand Nuyen, and I will take you to a safe place in the city."

"Done." He ignored the silent stares from Shimazu and Marius, not feeling that haggling here was going to be worthwhile, at least not without more information. "So – tell me a bit about yourself?"

"No, you are strangers in my city. I don't trust you." Kai blinked, but Musa didn't seem at all bothered about being quite so…forthright.

"Ok – so let's try something else then – how did you know the police were coming to get us."

"Ahh, that is easy. I have a friend in the police, who tips me off about such things. Musa does lots of business with people from out of town. It pays to keep your ears open. And it pays more to intervene. Two thousand more."

"But why are they looking for us? We've not done anything?"

"Five unknown visitors to the city, who just happen to turn up at the big demonstration outside Novatech? That is suspicious, no?"

"Maybe. But I still don't get it. We've got tourist visas, and we were staying in the international district – or what felt like it." Aswon had leant forward from his spot in the back, trying to get a read on how Musa was going to answer his point. It was Kai though that suddenly looked up, his eyes narrowing.

"I suspect that might be exactly why… tourists go on safari, or to hot springs, or wildlife parks. They don't come to a port city that exports millions of kilos of coal, ore and other natural goods. Business visitors come here, with work visas. And they probably have corporate sponsorship too. Dammit, we need to talk to Hunter about this, make sure we get the right kind of permits in the future." He sighed deeply, then shook his head and squared his shoulders – there was no sense in wasting time on regrets. "So – what do you know about the demonstration, Mr. Musa?"

"Hmm… someone is spending a lot of money. Organising coaches is one thing, but paying people to be off work – that is another. Money is coming in from outside Nigeria, but moving very carefully – I have no idea who. And that makes me curious! Maybe it is to cover different kinds of action against Novatech. And then I wonder – five strangers in the city, from all over the world." He turned to stare at Kai for a moment, before turning his attention back to the road. "Are you the action against Novatech?"

"Oh no, we're here for a completely different reason, and a totally different plan. But we could really do with some local knowledge about the corps in the city, and especially the police – and we're willing to pay for a local guide or someone with expert knowledge that could help us?"

"Hmm." The way Musa said it, it sounded less like a noise of consideration and more of an actual word that had meaning of some kind. "So, are you in the business, as they say?"

"Yes – we're experts in transportation and dealing with special interests. Either bringing them in, or getting them out, from locations that can otherwise prove troublesome. And you, Mr. Musa? Do you have special skills?"

"I arrange things, and put people together with other people, or with things." Kai and the rest of the team nodded, and actually started to relax a little. If he was speaking the truth – and they had no reason to suspect otherwise – then he was a fixer. And a fixer, familiar with the city was good news for them at the moment, and could save them a lot of grief, as long as they could trust him.

"Well. Mr. Musa, that's good news, and I'm sure we can do business together. Now, if you have anything that needs to be relocated from the city or even the country, I'm sure we can make some arrangements – once we've concluded our business. But, for the moment, we find ourselves in a situation, and we could make use of your services… for instance, we clearly need a place to stay in the city that won't attract the attention of the local police."

"I can get you a house, somewhere safe to stay. But I require payment up front."

"Of course. And what can you tell me about Novatech?"

"That depends what you want – but it will cost you." Aswon gave a snort and sat back in his chair, recognising the ruthless negotiations of an utter mercenary. He'd worked for a few different merc operations during his career, and he knew all about the vagaries of dealing with people wanting difficult or dangerous things done for money, and he was getting very strong vibes from Mousa now.

"Well, we're particularly after information about the compound, and how to get in undetected – so if there are things like known sewer pipes under the facility that someone in the local power and water company knows about, we'd like to be put in touch with those kinds of people. Or if there's some other way to get into the compound without being spotted, that would be useful."

"Perhaps, I can make some calls. Do you have hardware, guns? Do you require equipment?"

"Yes, we have guns – most of which are back with our vehicle – we're travelling quite light at the moment."

"But we're always interested in getting holder of interesting and rare items, or some of those hard-to-get items like certain kinds of ammunition." Aswon leant forward again, suddenly intent on the conversation now that specifics were being discussed. "Or failing that, passes, ID badges, details on employees – that kind of hard data. And I'm sure Kai will offer to pay very well for such things."

The van suddenly pulled over, cutting up a bunch of locals on their bikes and causing shouts of anger and outrage as they frantically steered around the van – not that anyone else seemed to care of course, the driving style being the standard for environments like this.

"So, you really do want to get into the compound, and the tower, too, I bet. Ok. But…"

"It's going to cost us, I know…" Aswon responded quickly.

"Ahh, I am glad we understand each other. Very well. I can help you with some supplies and we can look into the other things."

"One thing to mention now, before we go too far," Kai added, "is that we're delivery specialists, and we prefer to keep things non-violent where possible. Sometimes it's necessary, and so be it. But we prefer not to kill if we don't have to." Mr Musa gave him an odd look, but then shrugged and stretched out his hand to Kai, giving him a firm, almost crushing handshake.

"I can be your friend. I am Abegunde Musa, and I have many things I can sell you or arrange. Guns, ammunition, chips, drugs… all good quality products. All very hard to get hold of."

"What about skill chips?" Aswon asked.

"I don't have any. But I can get them – for a price. I just need to know what you need."

"And what about information on the police? Oh, and we need to get to an electronics store that won't ask questions, to purchase some equipment. We need to make some scanners and RFID readers…"

"Easier, but still costly." He pulled out a cred-reader from the storage box at the front of the van and turned to Kai, punching in numbers and then waiting for Kai to scan his stick. Once Kai had transferred the funds, Musa put the reader back and gave him another broad grin, then without warning put the van into gear and pulled back out into the road, causing a fresh wave of honking and yelling from the other road users. Within a few seconds it was clear to Marius that he was now driving with a specific purpose – and no longer letting the traffic dictate where he was going, forcing him into random turns and unpredictable routes that would have made tailing him difficult. Now he clearly had a specific destination in mind, and didn't care about cutting up other vehicles or performing crazy turns to get there.

As he drove, Musa launched into a description of the local police, filling them in on their operation. It turned out that though the police were technically a government force, owned and operated by the country for the protection of all of its citizens, that was nothing more than a sham. The bulk of the money that the police earned came from "special consulting fees" paid by the corps, and the arrangement was that permanent and routine that the corps actually had an unofficial 'council' for police interactions. From month to month, a corp might increase their funding slightly, or request specific services in relations to their consulting fees, but on the whole all of them kept up a steady flow of funds to the force, which was paid over and distributed amongst all of the employees. It was of course a pyramid of power, with those at the top taking the lion's share of the funds, gradually trickling down to the ground level – but everyone got some supplementary fees in their weekly pay from the corps and knew exactly who their allegiances belonged to.

In response to the corporate funding, the police ruled the town with an iron fist, doing whatever made the corps the most money or the least hassle. The reported crime rate was low, but the clean-up rate was nearly 100% - the police picking up people in response to reported crimes and just beating or torturing them until they confessed to their crimes, allowing the case to be closed neatly once 'justice' had been served. Those too high or out of it on chips to defend themselves had been the first casualties of the cleanup, and it became depressingly clear why the streets lacked the gutter elements so common elsewhere. Musa also described the very high rates of injuries amongst criminals who became very badly hurt while resisting arrest or fleeing capture, making it clear that the rights of citizens were worthless – unless you had a corporate ID.

Aswon checked with Musa and tried to get a couple of names, getting the details of a Captain and two Lieutenants who were particularly disliked or had a reputation for venality, explaining that if they needed to drop any names or offer bribes, it could be useful to have some particularly stellar examples of the corrupt hierarchy to drop.

Musa suddenly turned into a side road and pulled up sharply next to the door set into the wall. Towards the main road, they could see the store front, which seemed to be a combined general store and electronics shop.

"Go to the door, knock three times then pause, then knock three more. Tell them Musa sent you. All will be well."

Marius climbed out of the van, and after a moment's thought, Shimazu jumped out to follow him, closing up on his position by the time he reached the door to follow Musa's instructions. As they looked to be stopped here for a minute or two, Tads gently laid a hand on Aswon's thigh to silently attract his attention, and then pushed her spirit out of her body and rose up into the sky, taking in her surroundings and orientating herself. Once she knew where she was heading back to she quickly flitted back to the hanger and found Hunter, and this time took the time to brief him fully on what was going on, what they were up to and what they were planning to do next, then checked to make sure he was ok. He was a little grumpy about being stuck back in the tilt-wing, but there wasn't a lot to do about that, so she headed back to the van and got settled, arriving a minute before Marius returned from the store with several bags and boxes of equipment.

"Got everything you need?" Kai asked as they returned.

"Ja. I need a workbench and some time, but I can make some discreet scanners with these parts, and there is a chip writer included as well, so we can duplicate the results that we have scanned."

"I was thinking about the scanners actually." Aswon gestured to the bag of parts. "That's all well and good – but could we hot-mike jam the readers in the tower? And what would happen?"

"It depends on their security system. But it would probably prevent all access in an area – but likely trigger a major alarm or fault reading. Why?"

"Well, if we have to exit in a hurry, I was thinking of a jammer we can drop with a delayed activation or something. Hide it in a corner near a door, and after we've gone it then starts jamming every RFID channel, and stops anyone getting through after us?"

"Ja – that would work, probably. Or at least for long enough to get us the time we need to clear the immediate area. Not too difficult to build either – it does not have to have power for long to do the job."

"So, you have your electronics. Now, what else do we need? You need guns? Do you have a gun?" He gestured with a pudgy thumb at Aswon and a challenging look on his face. Aswon frowned at him, and then quickly drew and flicked one of the ceramic knives past his face, the sharp tip slicing into the interior lining of the roof just above the windscreen.

"My gun's back at our main vehicle at the moment – but we're not unarmed or defenceless, just because we don't have our primary weapons while we wander around the city." He leant forward past Musa and retrieved the knife, working it loose from the material and returning it to the bandolier it had come from. "But for the record, I have a rifle that is more than adequate. Though specialist ammunition for it is always welcome."

"Ok. We go back to my place, I show you some things." Musa started the van again and set off, heading south now and towards the docks that littered the southern side of the city. As they worked their way out of the city centre, the team realised they were wrong – the part of the city they had been in had actually been up-market after all, certainly compared to the area they were moving through now. Walls got higher, and the number of rolls of razor wire increased on the boundary walls, while the number of bullet holes and pock marks in the concrete from shrapnel increased sharply, while the buildings became less well-maintained and even rougher-looking. Packs of children sat in side streets working through huge piles of rubbish that had been dumped there, looking for material to recycle or salvage, and the aura of the area grew more and more depressed.

After twenty minutes of driving down narrow twisting lanes and dodging packs of feral dogs and equally feral children, they arrived at the "Dominion Tower Ministry", a large two storey property that promised the worship of god, daycare and basic education for children – though the sign claiming this was ravaged by small arms fire and had several large blood stains upon it. Musa drove through the gates though and pulled out a small remote control, activating it and triggering a double set of doors to open in the main building. He swung the van around in the dirty and dusty courtyard and then backed into the darkened interior, hitting the remote again to trigger the doors as soon as they were clear.

Inside the interior was dim, lit only by a few scattered sunbeams that made it through the shutters that covered the windows, illuminating columns of dust that sparkled in the air. The building was large and mostly a single room on the ground level, forming a double height chamber that had scattered pews and benches in facing a defunct pulpit and raised area. Stairwells in the corners rose up to presumably the third level that looked to be more regular-sized rooms from the stains on the ceilings – assuming they marked the internal walls from the level above.

Musa, however, led them out of the van and up to the raised dais, around the pulpit and to the back of the building, where a small flight of stone steps led down behind a concealing wall. Dropping down, they could smell damp in the air, and the temperature dropped a degree or two, even with the minimal drop in height. At the bottom was a very sturdy and heavy-duty door, reinforced and with a modern looking mag-lock reader to one side, along with an optical sensor for an iris scan. The security and the door were probably worth as much as the rest of the building, and the team looked around with interest, their curiosity piqued. Marius also noticed two very subtle cameras built into the door frame, one on either side of the door, that would identify anyone trying to get down to the area.

Once through the security door, the room opened out into a crypt, that in a lot of ways reminded them of the church in Sevastopol – the roof was higher, but constructed in a very similar fashion, which indicated that the modern building above had been built on some very old foundations. The moisture content of the air was noticeable down here, and it was cool – feeling very much like being in a cave or deep cavern where the temperature didn't vary all year round.

Bulkhead lights provided spotty illumination, with cable running across the ceiling like a spiderweb to power them all, and the space was a riot of shipping packages, containers, packets, boxes and bags, no doubt containing a million different items – all of them probably stolen or smuggled. It felt like the graveyard where contraband came to die, and there was gear scattered all over every available surface. Scattered around the main room though were some noticeably modern shipping boxes, with a distinctly green hue to their outer shells and the familiar stencil markings of a military logistics provider. Musa headed over to one of these boxes and removed a smaller box from inside, cracking that open to reveal the dull sheen of brass rounds with a smaller silver tip.

"These are very good. Rifle calibre but with improved penetrator heads. Super-SABOT. I can do you a box of these for two and half." He held them up, angling them to catch the light.

"Nice try, Mr. Musa, but we're not fresh off the boat. I could go five hundred…" Aswon retorted, pulling his hand back from where he'd been about to reach for the rounds to inspect them.

"Five hundred is an insult. I could maybe drop my price to two thousand, but these are quality bits of ammunition, very hard to get hold of."

"Sure, they're not that common – seven hundred and fifty. If we can do a deal on some other stuff, maybe a thousand."

Musa sniffed at him and dropped the rounds back in the box, then closed the lid, and instead turned to Kai.

"So, what kind of gun do you have? Maybe I can help with that…"

"I mostly use a taser, normally a Yamaha Pulser. I like the handling on it. Though I also shoot a bow… do you have any arrows with alternate tips?"

"Arrows? What? No… I do have some very fun shotgun shells though, very explosive. Maybe you could tie those on the front of the arrows?" Kai looked somewhat curious and so Musa moved over to a different box, opening it carefully and then pulling out a bunch of packaging to reveal a smaller container holding ten large shotgun shells. The package had a stencil of a dragon in front of a fireball, and the text 'Big Ds Temper' emblazoned underneath.

"I'm not sure about tying those to the front of my arrows – they just won't fly well. So not for me thanks, unless anyone else is interested?"

"Actually, yes. How much?" Aswon asked casually. "What, don't look at me like that!" He said to Kai and the rest of the team. "Just because I don't often use a shotgun, doesn't mean I can't. They're useful from time to time, and they might be fun."

"A thousand for the box of ten."

"Sure – that seems ok." Aswon nodded, taking the box carefully from Musa and checking it over."

"And what about you?" Musa turned to Marius.

"I normally use a submachine gun, chambered in twelve millimetres."

"Ahh, then I have something for you. How about these!" He triumphantly lifted another small container out of the larger shipping box, then pulled out a few boxes of 12mm ammo. The outer carton had a long sequence of numbers and letters, along with scannable codes, but no other identifiers. However when Musa opened up the packaging, they could see the entire front of the round was sprayed a bright yellow, and a single red ring was painted around the front of the actual bullet. "These are 'Magna' explosive rounds – from Catalyst Arms. They're an improvement on the extra-explosive rounds that they normally make. Even more punch, only slightly less stable." Musa shrugged slightly. "Only five hundred per box of ten."

"Sure, I will take both of them." Marius nodded at Musa, and then at Kai.

"And what about you?" Musa turned to Shimazu. Shimazu just shook his head at him, pulling out his knife and twirling it in his hand. Musa glanced over at Tads for a moment and then shrugged, closing the lid on his box of ammunition and moving over to a different box, opening it and pulling out some small bags of pills. "So – how about some nice, high-end drugs?"

Tads raised an eyebrow at Musa, but he was ignoring her, addressing mainly Kai, it seemed. She thought for a moment about saying something – it irked her to be overlooked, and she wondered if it was a personal foible or a cultural or religious thing. Part of her wanted to make her displeasure known – though she'd also be somewhat self-conscious if he did ask her about her gun and she revealed she didn't have one. She glanced around at the team, and took a moment to consider. Shimazu was lethal at any range under ten metres, and was faster than a striking snake – and on raw power was possibly the most lethal person in the room right now. But, he was in strange company… if Aswon had a line of sight to a target, no matter how fast it was moving she had faith the he could take it down with a single shot, if it really mattered. And she'd seen Marius behind the controls of a drone or a vehicle. Suitably armed, he could devastate an area with a twitch of his mind. Kai's power was a little more insidious, and while he couldn't perhaps cause direct violence on a level with the rest of the team, she shuddered at the thought of what he could do if he put his mind to it. A powerful speech given at a sports stadium or political rally to a large crowd could have them eating out of his hand, and he could potentially incite a riot that would consume a city.

And her? Well, with a moment's notice, she was pretty sure she could stun every living thing in this room into unconsciousness without them being able to resist her. She could drop them into a pit of earth that consumed them and crush them to death, blast apart a single target with a bolt of lightning or blast of pure mana that would see their head explode or bring them back from the brink of death. She stared at Musa for a moment, thinking of all the things she could do with him if she wanted to, and the frown was slowly replaced with a tiny smile. Sure – let him underestimate her. Others had in the past, and they weren't still around to repeat that mistake.

Kai and the others were listening to Musa detail the various effects of his range of drugs, unaware of the dagger-like stare from Tads. He was well supplied at the moment, but it appeared that everything he had was mainly aimed at a single market – the corporate party-goer. The price alone was proof of that, with the after single dose running to a hundred and fifty Nuyen, but promising a 'cosmic' experience that would blow the mind. There were certainly no street level drugs here, designed for the bottom end of society, and nothing useful in a combat environment. Perhaps others dealt in Jazz or Kram, but not Musa.

Kai quickly checked with Marius on their proposed route home from Nigeria, wondering if they were hitting any corporate spots that might be worth smuggling drugs to – but with their lack of relevant contacts in Egypt, they would have to move on to somewhere else to shift them if they wanted to make a decent profit. He was still tempted – they were small after all, and even with their very limited cargo space currently, there was always going to be room for a box of drugs the size of these. However, they were clearly aimed at a very niche market, and without any rep as a supplier, they would have no doubt a great deal of difficulty shifting them and making enough money to be worthwhile. It was Shimazu who persuaded him otherwise…

"What about if we got just a couple of doses of something uppy, or happy, and a couple of downers. That way if we do need to knock anyone out, we can dose them and whoever finds them will potentially find a reason for them being off their post that's nothing to do with us?"

"Good call. And I think we can probably dose them up discreetly as well, between us. Ok. Let's see what we can get…" They ended up buying five doses of a drug that went by the name of "Mong", which made the universe feel like it was made up of constantly exploding fractals (apparently), and five doses of 'Happy Clown' that made you grin like a lunatic and walk like your shoes were three metres long and five metres away…

"How do you get all this stuff in and out?" Aswon asked, looking around the place. "Surely people will notice a lot of traffic in and out of the church building above?"

"Uhm. Well, we are friends now. Come, I show you." Musa led the way into the other half of the crypt, working his way around boxes and showed them to a sloping tunnel that led to the west. It was about thirty metres long, and the stonework was rough and of low quality, with Aswon having to bend over to avoid scraping his head off the ceiling – but it then opened up into a square chamber that had a distinctly fishy odour to it. To the west the chamber was open, the roof held up by a single stone archway, but there was a solid mass of bushes that blocked sight in and out. Musa gently pushed through at one spot, and they found themselves looking at a small jetty, with the river lapping gently at the rough and ancient timbers. The small grove was surrounded by thick undergrowth, and there was a sharp dog-leg leading out of the small basin and to the main river tributary. If you knew where you were going, it would be easy enough to get a small power-boat into here and to off-load supplies out of sight of anyone unless they were directly overhead – and once you'd pushed through the bushes into the stone chamber, even that risk was mitigated.

Marius looked around and spotted a small patch of vegetation that looked to have grown over a fuelling point – though a closer inspection revealed that the mosses and grasses were growing on some kind of support lattice that held them clear of the actual pump. It wasn't clear if the pump worked, or where it fed from – but it was probable that there was a small fuel bunker buried somewhere around here that the smugglers could use to refuel when they visited. He turned in place, slowly examining the setup, assessing it carefully. For anyone operating a boat, it was a great little setup – but unfortunately it was way too tight to be viable for landing in, even with a deft touch and a rigger interface. The closest he'd get was the courtyard to the east of the church, and that wouldn't be that subtle at all. At least not without some help from Tads…

Musa led the way back inside, and once they were all back in the main chamber, he pointed at Aswon once more.

"Ok, ok, you didn't like da other rifle ammo. Maybe you like this…" He dug around in a box, and then pulled out a massive magazine, longer than the span of his hand and as wide as two of his fingers. When he popped out one of the rounds inside it was easy to determine what it was – a 12.7mm sniper round. The entire tip of the bullet was painted black and had a silver ring around it that glinted in the dull lights. Aswon moved over to examine it, hefting the round carefully – it was heavy, even for the calibre, and that normally indicated some kind of exotic metals or chemistry. But when he checked the round carefully his eyes shot up – he could see the tiny little slivers distributed evenly around the massive round, just forward of the neck point. He wasn't sure how they'd engineered a fin stabilisation system into a round like this, but they clearly had – and these things would be far more accurate and hard hitting than anything else he'd had access to. He tried to calm his expression, and handed the round back, before casually asking how much.

When Musa proposed a price of a thousand Nuyen for the magazine of five, Aswon nodded immediately, and reached out to shake his hand – tying in the deal before he could change his mind.

"So, what else do you need for your job?"

"Well, I require a place to work, undisturbed, with some basic tools to assemble these scanners."

"Come over here, then. I can let you use my workbench and lights for the day. Only… two hundred fifty."

"Good. That will let me build the scanners and we can start gathering ID tags on the workers and plan the next stage."

"Or you can take them?"

"Excuse me?"

"You want to get into Novatech. Well, I can get the workers snatched. I have a surgeon available, we can just take the trackers out of them, implant them into you. Just take their place."

"We don't want to kill those workers though!" Aswon added quickly.

"Ahh, then it will cost more if we need to store the bodies and care for them. Two thousand per person to snatch and extract the IDs, and keep them on ice for a few days."

"And how much notice would you need for this?"

"A few hours to make arrangements. But is a simple task."

"Well, that sounds good. But I need a moment to confer with my boss, and the team." Aswon shooed them all over into the entrance way, standing next to the heavy security door. "Kai, I'm not saying we don't do this – it's a good way to get in potentially. If they rely on the RFID tags, they might not check photos or anything. But there's something I gotta tell you. Watch what you say around Musa, and be clear on what you want."

"What do you mean?"

"The price he was going to quote for the RFID tags was going to be lower. Because he was gonna get them kidnapped and then offed, and just get the tags ripped out by a butcher. Not because he's nasty or evil – but because that's the most efficient and cost-effective way to do it. This guy is a PROPER mercenary. EVERYTHING has a cost, but human life isn't going to be that expensive. Just bear that in mind when you're dealing with him, ok. Be clear about how you want things done, and always bear in mind he's going to do it the cheapest way possible for him while getting the job done – even if that means killing someone or ripping them to bits. Ok?"

"I see what you mean now. Ok – we need to be careful." Kai swallowed and took a deep breath, then smiled at Musa, squared his shoulders and took a few steps over towards him, hand outstretched to shake. "I like your style, Mr. Musa. Let's work out a deal and make some plans…"