Saturday 18/9/2060, Location: 22.22744, 114.24966, Time 06:00

The team settled down back at the academy, grabbing a few hours of rest after their midnight excursion, with Aswon on watch just in case anyone came nosing around. With no one disturbing him, he grabbed a cat-nap at dawn when Tads rose to carry out her morning rituals, grabbing thirty minutes of sleep while the rest of the team started to stir towards consciousness.

The weather was grey and miserable, with a fine drizzle falling that made everything look flat and washed out – less depressing than the heavier rains of the previous day, but still not fun. Despite that, Tads, Hunter, Shimazu, Vadim and Aswon headed out for the morning exercise, joining the students and instructors as they ran up and down the beach doing exercises. Today was apparently Simi's day to lead the exercises, and the team found themselves joining the big circle of students lying on their backs in a circle, passing a medicine ball around from one person to another, while holding their legs in their air doing bicycle kicks, along with a variety of other exercises that stressed their cores. It at least made an interesting change in program, though by the end of the session they all felt sore and slightly wobbly as they made their way back for a shower and to get changed, stopping only long enough to inform Kai and Marius that they'd missed a 'good session'…

After breakfast, they headed back to one of the rooms, grabbing pillows and cushions to make themselves comfortable as they settled down to do some planning.

"Right, first thing I want to say is that we should be going in there with non-lethal ammunition where possible, and at the most hollow-points. Tads saw kids toys and stuff in the apartment from the memories, and I'm not down with killing children – even if their dads are vicious Triad bosses. But also, it's a residential block, and I don't want to be shooting anything that's going to punch through walls into the next apartment and kills some innocent random people."

"That sounds reasonable, and I agree, Aswon." Kai nodded, "I don't think we should be looking at any collateral damage if we can help it, and ideally we should be in and out like we did with Lo Han – so nobody knows we were there."

"I wonder… " Aswon stared up at the ceiling for a moment. "Could we use that cylinder of Neurostun gas we picked up on the ship leaving Tokyo? Gas the apartment, wait a few minutes for it to dissipate and then just head in. No shooting, no violence. There's a very slight chance someone could be allergic to the gas, or have some kind of reaction – but as long as we check everyone over, there's not really any chance of long term damage."

"I like that idea. It limits risk and exposure to us, and also prevents a lot of noise or alarm."

"Yes, Marius, that's what I was thinking. Is there an antidote to the Neurostun though? Something we can use to counter the effects?"

"Not really. Not that I am aware of. Aswon?"

"No, Marius, the best thing is time. It's designed to break down on exposure to the normal air, and normally becomes inert in a few minutes, and if left alone people will wake up in an hour or two on their own. We might be able to speed the process up with a stimulant from the med-kit, but unless we specifically want to wake someone up, it's just a matter of time for them to recover."

"Excellent. Well, that sounds reasonable then." Kai smiled. "So, we get into the apartment – I'm guessing Marius can get us through the door with no problems based on his description of the locks." Marius pulled a face, his disdain clearly visible. "So we just need to get round the island there."

"Ja. We need a large vehicle, preferably a small van or something with some cargo capacity, and an enclosed rear section."

"Ok, let me go ask Chun, see if he can hook us up with something."

"Ideally we need to pay with certified credit – not money from one of our IDs. There's a good chance that something will go wrong during this, and that the vehicle may get tagged and associated with any incidents. We don't want this leading back to us if we can help it."

"Fair enough, Aswon, I'll ask and see what I can do…" Kai levered himself up and headed out of the room, wandering through the academy work areas to look for Chun. While he was gone, Hunter headed down to the tilt-wing and recovered the bottle of Neurostun gas they'd purchased and bought it back to the room, and they planned out how they might deliver the gas into the apartment.

"I believe that the apartment has a centrally-managed air conditioning system. We did not see any individual units on the outer walls or balconies of the block. So if we can get into the service ducts or ceiling areas, we should be able to gain access." Marius offered. Hunter pulled up his deck and soon had some basic details for HVAC systems, noting that many of them used common pipe diameters and connections, theoretically making it a relatively easy job to get the parts and fittings to connect the two items together. Kai returned a few minutes later with news.

"Chun originally suggested getting a vehicle from one of the rental companies at the airport - apparently there are quite a number there, and we could get all kinds of different sizes. But, I remembered what you said about tying stuff back to our IDs, so I've leaned on that, and Chun made a call to some guy he knows. He's got a small panel van coming here, should be with us by about ten thirty or so, and he's aware that he might need to take it off the public roads for a bit afterwards. He did say though that if we trash it, we bought it…"

"I can hide the vehicle with a spirit if there's no magical observers. Or we can disguise with a vehicle masking spell – but not at the same time as I'm probing someone's mind or doing other kind of high-concentration spells."

"If we have some time before we need to leave, I can work on the transponder, and make sure we cannot be tracked. Though we may want to check if we can actually drive in the city without a transponder."

"On it," Hunter murmured, reaching for his deck once more.

"So, we know that we have transport coming, and we have a plan to deal with the occupants of the apartment. Next question is of course – getting the information. Do we have a list of questions or things we want to know?"

"Ideally, where Harley is being held – but asked in a way that doesn't reveal that they've given the information away, so they don' t know to be alarmed or on alert."

"Tads, I just want to warn you…" Aswon uncharacteristically stopped mid-sentence, as he tried to find the right way of expressing himself. "Well, this guy is the same rank as Lo Han from what we can work out. So there's a good chance he's done the same kind of things. He's probably going to have caused the same amount of pain and suffering to people, and have a similar outlook and moral stance."

"I know."

"Well, just… be careful. You obviously didn't enjoy being in Lo Han's mind, and I was a little worried about you. So just try and steel yourself for what you're going to find…"

The room fell silent for a moment, before Hunter unjacked and blinked, then looked around at them to see who was talking. When it was clear he wasn't going to interrupt anyone, he told them what he'd found.

"Ok, most of Hong Kong is fully enabled for grid guide – but it's not a mandatory system technically. The police will stop people without it though, depending on the vehicle type. From what I can see there are just enough people who live out in the rural areas with older vehicles that don't support it or who just can't afford it that they haven't been able to make it fully compulsory yet."

"That's pretty odd – I would have thought the corps would just tell them to go screw themselves and buy new cars!" Aswon muttered.

"Most of the people I've found are farmers – bringing in fresh food and produce from local farms into the area. Want to bet most of that ends up in luxury restaurants, serving the corporate executives?"

"Ahh… ok, that makes sense. Bastards. But it does mean we won't get immediately pulled up for not being on the grid."

"No, though we would raise flags if we pass a police checkpoint. I would imagine food delivery trucks get a pass, everyone else gets checked and hassled as to why they're not on grid." Hunter grinned and looked at Tads, who had her lips poised, ready to ask a question. "Lemme guess… you want to know what grid guide is?" Tads nodded at him in relief.

"So, every vehicle has a little computer in it, and a short range radio. It broadcasts details about the vehicle out, speed, heading, destination, number of passengers, stuff like that. How much depends on the complexity of the transponder and the sensors in the vehicle, but at the very least it has the type of vehicle, speed and direction. Ok? Right, and built into the city are receivers. Sometimes just on poles along the road, but more often buried into the road surface, so they're harder to vandalise. In high-tech cities, they're built into the induction pads in the road that power the electric vehicles. And these computers listen to the radio announcements from the cars that go over them, working out how busy traffic is, and how it's moving."

"Oh, I see. So if we are on grid guide, someone can track us around a place."

"Exactly. Used as it's meant to be, it can spot traffic building up in an area, and route other vehicles around the black spots, or to avoid an accident. It can move traffic to the side of the road to let emergency services through, and feed back information to the vehicles' nav systems to advise on traffic, estimated journey duration and things like that."

"Let me guess, it's not always used like that?"

"Nope. Depending on who is running the grid, they'll send out updates making you upgrade to the latest version control software from your manufacturer – at only a small charge. They route vehicles with kids on long journeys past fast food joints or drive-throughs, they send people with cheaper or poorer vehicles the long way round and prioritise the best roads for the luxury vehicles… that kinda thing. Typical corp stuff, you know the drill by now."

"Ok, thanks Hunter. So, we want to stick to areas without grid guide then to avoid all of that bad stuff?"

"Yes, and at least we should be able to get nearly all the way to the apartment block off grid if we're careful with our route." Tads nodded in understanding, looking down at the map of the southern part of the city, marvelling at the strange ways that her fellow meta-humans had found to screw each other over. It seemed odd – people thought that she was backwards and uneducated sometimes, coming from a settlement with no running water, electricity or roads – but she and her tribe worked together to make their lives better, for the good of the whole tribe, not just some part of it. Granted some positions were more desirable than others – but that was based on merit and achievement, not some artificial position. Her own life as a shaman had seen her respected and treated well by her people, for instance.

"Oh – sorry, random thought… Kai – I think you should talk to Chun about his powers and abilities. If Shimazu found out he's an adept, he really should be told, you know."

"I disagree. We absolutely shouldn't mention this now."

"Aswon? I'm surprised! He really should be told. He has a personal sense of honour, I think, a very strong one. At the moment he thinks he's just incredibly good, and I mean, don't get me wrong, he probably is very good, I'm not saying he's not… just that he's not as good as he thinks. He's got an unfair advantage over anyone mundane, and they're not fighting on a level playing field. It's only because he's apparently managed to train himself how to hide his magical nature from others that he's not been discovered."

"Let me rephrase then, Tads – we should tell him at some point. But not before this fight – definitely not. Just in case we can't get Harley back, and he has to go into the fight, or even if we can get him back but he fights anyway – this is a huge deal for him. Telling him something that will completely disrupt his world view on the eve of a hard fight he's already had barely any time to prepare for is an awful thing to do, and could throw him really badly off balance at a time where he needs not to be."

"Oh, I see. That makes some sense, I suppose. So you're not against telling him, but not wanting to distract him in the next few days?"

"Exactly. He doesn't need a crisis of faith this close to the fight. And if he's avoided detection for this long, let's just hope it holds a while longer." As Aswon finished speaking, Shimazu raised a finger to indicate he wished to speak.

"My feeling was that he slipped only for a moment, and that I was somewhat lucky to be examining him at just that time. His mental shields are pretty strong, and I haven't seen any evidence of magic before – or since. I'm fairly certain he's learnt some ability beyond what most of us have learnt in terms of masking his abilities, some advanced form that lets him bury his power much deeper within him."

"Interesting. But let's leave that to one side then." Kai steered the planning back on course. "So, we can get there safely, between back roads, vehicle masking spells, and probably the age and style of the vehicle. When we get there, we can get in using the knowledge Marius gained last time, and we know where we're going inside. We've got a rough plan of gassing them all with the Neurostun, introduced via the H-VAC system. Now we just need to work out how to actually do that, without being spotted by some residents and the alarm being raised."

"I have an idea on that." Hunter swung his screen round, showing them a bunch of images of people in coveralls. "I did a search on various telecoms, heating, electrical and other utility companies in the areas. A lot of the small ones seem to favour these brown overalls, which come with patches for your company logo and stuff like that. But they all seem pretty standard, and from the number of hits I got, fairly common. So, I've tracked back the manufacturer, and have their matrix site details, and from that found a bunch of stockists. We can go via a trade counter and pick up a bunch of uniforms that will make us look like one of several dozen technical companies, including hi-vis vests, work hats, gloves and toolboxes. So, disguises are not a problem…"

"Nice work, Hunter. That should make things easier!"

"We might want to look at purchasing some tools as well from such a place – ones with the correct fittings or parts for healing with air conditioning pipes and systems. That should reduce the risk of leakage or contamination."

"Good idea, Aswon. Can you add that to your list Hunter?" The big ork nodded to Kai.

At more or less the same moment, Aswon and Marius moved suddenly – one because his phone was vibrating in his pocket, the other because his internal phone was flashing an alarm display onto his retinal screen. Both checked their messages, but it was Marius that finished reading his first.

"Kai, we have good news and bad news. The good news is that they feel they have stripped down and repaired enough of the engines to generate a meaningful cost estimate, and have most of the materials worked out, in terms of repair and replacement. The bad news is that their estimate at the moment is a little over six hundred thousand Nuyen." Kai had just taken a swig of coffee and very nearly spurted it out over the floor, causing at least some smiles from the rest of the team.

"Well shit!" He pulled up his PDA and checked the balance – a little under three hundred thousand on their various credsticks… "That's more than we were expecting. We, um… don't have that much."

"Maybe we should sell those shares then." Tads muttered, glaring at Kai.

"I think we should. But I also think we are unlikely to get that much for them, and it will still leave us a considerable amount of money short – as well as leaving us with no operational budget for things like fuel." Marius replied.

"Ok, so that's a problem, and we need to think about a solution. Maybe we can go back to the Johnsons that hired us, ask them for some money up front. Maybe not. Hmm. We don't have any answers at the moment, and it's not going to help to dwell on it right now, so what was your news, Aswon?"

"Spook has come back to me with a possible lead. A smuggler by the name of Harikona, I have some contact details for them. Spook thinks they can get us across the border into Japan for a reasonable cost. So that at least is something. Going back to the cost for the repairs – perhaps we can find somewhere in need of wards? Maybe Giovani's? If we can barter for some services in exchange for repairs, that might help lower the costs."

"If we get the opportunity, could we place money on a bet on Chun winning his fight? If we're confident we can get Harley back, and he's going to win, maybe we can get some money that way?"

"I'm not sure about that, Shimazu. It sounds risky… do you think he's good enough to win? When we don't know what opposition he's up against?"

"True, we don't know the calibre of the fighter he's going to face – but having sparred with him, he's very, very good. I just can't see there being someone else that good that he's not heard of. And I think the situation will have given him an edge. He smiles a lot and he's very polite, but I think there's a slow-burning flame inside him. Remember the look he gave Wa Fan? I think he's channelling that rage, and when he lets it out, it's going to go badly for whoever is on the receiving end."

"Speaking of Wa Fan… I still think with the information we got from Lo Han, we might be able to flip her, get her on our side, against him."

"I don't know, Kai. That seems unlikely to me. You've said before that the Triads are big on oaths and loyalty, and I would have thought that is going to weigh heavily on her mind. And if Lo Han has been after her for a while, she might be paranoid – thinking it's a test from the higher ups."

"I would agree with Shimazu. If you're going to turn her, it's going to be entirely on your ability to persuade her, and that means making no mistakes." Aswon's head shook, as he indicated what he thought their chances were of succeeding with this plan.

Their discussion was interrupted by a knock on the door. Aswon rolled to his feet and answered it, turning back to them a moment later.

"The vehicle's arrived, round the side of the building if we want to go take a look." Kai nodded and got to his feet, as did Marius, and the rest of the team followed them out of the room and downstairs, heading out to the west side of the building and the small dirt track that wound down towards the town. Waiting on the road was a fairly small van, narrow and not very high. Marius wandered up to it slowly, taking in the modest dimensions, and finding himself with a sinking feeling in his stomach.

The Daihatsu Hi-Jet had a small cab perched at the front of the chassis, with two seats positioned over the small engine. The rear looked to be originally a flat-bed design, but someone had fashioned an enclosed box for the rear section that had been bolted on. Faded marks on the sides showed where decals had been placed, leaving sun-bleached marks around them, and the whole vehicle was splattered with mud and debris underneath – far more than could be explained by the drive here. When Marius checked inside he could see no sign of rigger controls, though at least there was a datajack, meaning he could at least partially control the vehicle by electronic means, even if he didn't get the full rigged experience.

"Well, if this is what we have, we can make it work. I will need some time to work on it, though, and take care of the transponder. I will go and get my toolkit." He turned on his heel and headed back towards the tilt-wing, his face bland. He wasn't fooling anyone though – they could tell he wasn't impressed.

"We should put up a ward on the vehicle as well, before we take it out." Aswon turned to face Kai, Shimazu and Tads. "If we all work together, I'm sure we can get a pretty powerful ward put up on this fairly quickly. Though we're probably going to only be able to cover the rear area – it looks like they're separate, and I'm assuming we want the defences on the inside, not the outside…"

They got to work – Hunter helping Marius as he worked on the engine, exposing the transponder unit and installing a bypass switch so he could disable it from the cab at will, and Vadim watching the magical members of the team as they quickly worked to put up a powerful ward in the rear section of the vehicle. It would only last a week without them using any of the specially prepared materials they normally used for such an endeavour, but it wasn't their vehicle, and that should be plenty of time.

They finished just before lunch, and as they headed inside to grab some food, Chun reminded them that the boat they'd asked about was tied up in the harbour at the other end of the beach, ready and waiting for them. Kai nodded and thanked Chun, glossing over the fact that he'd completely forgotten about this, and telling Chun that they'd go and check it out just after lunch, as they'd finished preparing the van.

With Marius in the driver's seat and Kai up front with him, the rest of them crammed into the rear, filling the space between the large bodies of Shimazu and Hunter, the lanky form of Aswon, Tads, Vadim and several large kit bags containing demolitions gear, toolkits, guns, ammo and other miscellaneous items. As they set off, Tads wedged herself into the corner and poked Shimazu.

"I'm going to go check back on the island. Back soon." Her body went limp as her astral form leapt out, then raced south back to the island fort that Vadim had traced Harley's signature to. She sleazed her way in through the wards, checking out each of the storerooms one after another, before taking a quick scout around the outside parts of the island. With nothing spotted, she headed back, looking around on the northern end of the beach until she spotted the small van at the edge of the cove north of the beach. Tied up there was a fishing boat, perhaps ten metres long, with the team talking with the owner or operator. She dived back into her body and was about to climb out of the van, when the team appeared and started to climb back in.

"It's fuelled and ready to go. Marius thinks he can drive it ok, but it's not rigged, so he doesn't want to go out in rough weather if he can help it. But it's big enough for all of us, and has a small bunk room and storage space, and he seems to think it's seaworthy and good enough to get us down to the island." Aswon explained as he folded himself in two, trying to fit into the corner opposite Tads.

"Where are we heading next?"

"To Chai Wan, the first big town you come to up at the northern end of the island, before we start to turn west and head for Hong Kong city. There's a warehouse that Hunter found, where we can get overalls and hard hats and things, to use to disguise ourselves as workmen when we get to the apartment block." Aswon managed to get his PDA turned around enough to show her the map he was looking at, with the warehouse highlighted in red on the street view.

"Right, ok, I'll see you there then. I'm going to check out the apartment and see what's going on, see if I can get any intel for us before we arrive physically." Once more, she leapt out upon gossamer wings of astral energy, this time speeding to the north west, heading over the mountain that dominated the centre of the island and to the southern edge of the city, then briefly manifesting to look for the towering thirty story apartment block, a massive outthrust concrete edifice standing out from the mountain. She dived inside, brushing away the tiny ward as if it was just a whisp of cobweb, looked around and when she saw that she was alone, briefly manifested – staying visible only long enough to see the door numbers on the apartment. Once she had located apartment 2709, she exited from the lift area and moved down the side of the building, examining the outside.

Finding the larger set of windows that probably indicated a main living area, she more cautiously slid through the ward, carefully looking around for any astral observers. She saw several men, sitting relaxing, facing towards one corner of the room – almost certainly watching a Trideo unit – before her eyes focussed on a small child playing against some kind of furniture about halfway down the room. Just above the child, hovering over a small shrine of some kind that oozed magical power, a spirit was slowly turning, rotating towards her. With a split second of time before it saw her, she dived back through the wall, hiding beyond it and the ward that coated it. She paused for a moment to ensure that it hadn't spotted her and was pushing through the ward itself, before she took off to the north, heading two hundred kilometres away and rising high up into the sky before she stopped in the middle of a cloud and did an abrupt hard right, then accelerated madly, hoping to throw off any astral pursuit.

Ten minutes later she plopped back into her body, convinced that she was not being observed, and took a deep breath, stretching as much as she could in the cramped confines.

"Everyone, just a quick update. There's a spirit in Ngun's apartment. It very nearly spotted me, but I think I ducked out of the way just in time. I only got a fleeting glimpse of it, and I'm not sure if it was a free spirit, a hearth spirit or something else – but there was something that looked like a small shrine on a table, and there was a child nearby. In the same room there were a bunch of adults as well, all watching the trid. Didn't get more detail than that – thought it best not to hang around and invite trouble."

"Well, that's worse than not having any astral defences at all of course, but it might not be too bad. If it is a hearth spirit, it'll be bound to the apartment at least, and probably unable to leave it. If it's a free spirit, that's worse as it can go where it likes, including hunting us down… But either way, or even if it's something weird we've not seen before, chances are it's there to guard the apartment and the occupants, not to take the offensive. How powerful do you think it was, Tads?"

"I'm not entirely sure, Aswon – but at a guess, I'd say a bit less than Vadim. A competent and meaningful threat, but not insurmountable."

"Hmm. Well, in that case, I think we may have to ask Vadim to guard the van. Nothing to do with what Tads has just said, Vadim…" Aswon flashed a quick smile at the Russian soldier, "it's more that without the ability to mask your aura and hide your astral being, going near that spirit is potentially more likely to land you in bother. And if they have a spirit we should plan that it might be mobile and able to leave the apartment, so it makes sense to leave someone magically proficient in our getaway vehicle." Vadim listened to Aswon and nodded in agreement.

"So, how do we deal with the spirit? I presume we just kick in the door, and Shimazu charges in with his sword to chop it in half?" Even though he was in the cab, the comms transmitted Kai's voice as clearly as if he was right next to them – though given how much they'd paid for the subvocal microphones and transmitters, that was a good thing.

"Sorry to be a spanner in the works, but I'm actually not down with that as a plan. If Tads did see a shrine in the room, and the spirit is a guardian of the house, then I'm not planning on killing it, or even attacking it at all. That would be very disrespectful…"

"We can always try diplomacy. If we're just after information, and don't want to kill anyone – and can convey that to the spirit, but make it clear that we have more than enough firepower to kill it or at least banish it for a lunar cycle…maybe we can convince it not to attack?"

"Hang on, can we just go back to the bit where Shimazu isn't stabbing it in the face?"

"Sorry Kai, no. If it attacks us, and one of the team is in danger – sure. It'll get what's coming. But I'm not going in there with the express purpose of killing or attacking a spirit just because. No." Silence fell for a few moments, before Kai tried a new avenue.

"Is there any offering or something like that we can take, or present it with, to try and appease it? Or something we can do to offer it a deal?"

"Well, most spirits feed off of Metahuman souls and experience in some way. Offering to share a part of yourself is normally something that all spirits desire – it's how they grow and enhance themselves. But giving away a part of yourself to a spirit is a pretty big deal, so you need to think that through very carefully…" Aswon looked down at his hands, gripping tightly together and squeezing hard enough that some of the colour had leeched out of his hands. "And you want to be careful. It doesn't matter if a spirit is good or bad, benign or toxic – they'll take part of you regardless."

"Without knowing what particular faith or creed these people follow, I don't think there's a way to appease it, Kai. If we were in Japan, and this was a Shinto shrine, then as long as we don't damage the home and the family, we could probably bargain with it… but I doubt that the appeals I could make on the basis of that set of beliefs would apply here."

"Everyone. We are just about to arrive at the warehouse. Making sharp turns." Marius's voice warned them to hang on to the walls or brace against each other as he made several sharp turns into the estate and accessway for the sales company, before swinging around to aim the back of the van at the wall. When he'd stopped, they emerged from the cramped confines and stretched their legs, before heading in to purchase their disguises. Fifteen minutes later they had overalls and work equipment sized to fit them, and climbed into the van once more – now even more crowded with several additional bags of clothing crammed in.

They headed west, covering the ten kilometres to the city remarkably quickly and smoothly. It wasn't thanks to the vehicle – which whined and struggled to reach more than sixty kilometres per hour thanks to the tiny engine, but traffic was remarkably light. Somewhat suspicious, Marius tuned in the radio to one of the local stations and listened, suffering through some insipid pop music until the next news and travel report was broadcast. He learned then that there had been a major crash in the tunnel linking the two parts of the city, that had caused massive tailbacks and gridlock in the two main central districts. Traffic had been stalled for several hours, and listeners were advised to cancel plans and stay home, or shop locally instead due to the bedlam. On hearing this, Hunter quickly pulled out his map and started to work on an alternate route, taking them away from the city centre and skirting around on minor roads to avoid the traffic jams ahead.

It was a little before one in the afternoon then, when the battered off-white van pulled up to the side of Kennedy Road, just past the apartment block and found a parking spot. Marius and Kai climbed out of the front, moving round to the back doors and checked for anyone watching, before opening one of the doors and letting the team climb out in single file, separated by twenty or thirty seconds each and head over to the stairwell leading up the side of the parking levels and to the main concourse.

With Vadim sat in the van keeping an eye out, scanning for astral beings as well as physical watchers, the team carried their heavy bags up the ten levels of stairs to reach the plaza, craning their necks back up at the thirty-storey behemoth before them. The clouds looked surreal as they blew overhead, the size of the building distorting their perspective and making some of them feel slightly nauseous.

Everyone had changed into their overalls and had helmets or caps pulled down over their heads, large work bags held in their hands, and they tried to casually head for the entrance way, following Marius and Shimazu as they retraced their steps. When they approached the door, Hunter grinned at them, and leant around while Marius reached for his toolkit.

"I got this." He placed a gnarled and calloused thumb on the top left corner of the keypad and leant in, applying his strength and not inconsiderable body weight to the effort. The security door clicked open, followed almost immediately by a cracking noise as the faceplate split under the pressure exerted.

"Oops." Hunter didn't look that repentant though, despite the visibly squashed casing bulging out to the side while the plastic on the front had turned white along several stress lines. He opened his fingers wide and grasped the lock on both side, squeezing between fingers and thumb to try and restore the original shape. "There, that's better. No one will ever know."

"That would only have taken me a few seconds, Hunter," Marius said, somewhat crossly. He sighed at the grin on the big ork's face, knowing he wasn't going to get anywhere. "Come on, lifts are down the corridor on the right-hand side." He pulled the door open and led the way into the lobby, the rest of the team following along, their bags giving the odd metallic clunk as hardware shifted around.

Marius and Shimazu knew what to expect, but the others had yet to experience the run-down nature of the complex. The walls might have once been a cheery and bright yellow, but grime, age and a lack of maintenance had seen them fade to an insipid colour that reminded them of vomit, stained with an accumulation of dirt and detritus over the years. A faint smell of urine lingered in the area, and rubbish was scattered over the cracked and uneven floor, lying in small piles where the wind had swept it whenever someone had opened the door to the outside. Hunter quickly dialled down the sensitivity of his nose, choosing not to dwell on the stench of ammonia, and followed the rest of the team as they headed to the lift, calling a car and pushing the button for the twenty-seventh floor.

When the lift doors opened, the team leant out cautiously, giving a quick scan up and down the hallway. It was agreeably empty, and devoid of cameras. To their left was a short length of corridor with a large window, looking down over the plaza below, while to the right the corridor met an east-west corridor at a t-junction. Aswon headed left first, wandering past the lift bank and finding the door to the stairwell. Pushing open the heavy fire door he could see junk scattered all over the landing – food and drink containers, discarded clothing, used needles, wraps of foil and discarded cases for BTL chips.

"Stairwell clear, no camera. Looks filthy, so doesn't seem well used, except for people to do drugs on. Heading back."

Hunter meanwhile had moved to the right, and just on the corner of the T-junction had found a maintenance door leading into the building's central utility riser. Once more, it was equipped with a Sheng-Dong series lock, and with a bit more care and attention, he once more pressed on the casing in the required spot, until he could hear the lock disengage as the case hit the override button. The door opened to reveal a dimly lit and filthy cupboard, but instead of litter and the passage of people, it was airborne dust, oil and leaks from the air conditioning system that had coated everything with a layer of grime.

Thick pipes were covered in flow markings, showing the passage of hot and cold water, or high and low pressure air. Bundles of cables delivered matrix feeds to properties, heavy copper cables sheathed in cracking plastic carried power, and much thicker plastic pipes looked to take sewage away for processing. There were some labels present, but just as much wasn't labelled at all, or had been scrawled out as patches or repairs had been done, slipshod and haphazard over the years. Marius was unsurprisingly disgusted with the lack of order and care, and Hunter shared his feelings – it was going to take them some time to try and trace what went where and make sure they had the correct pipes to deliver their knock-out gas through.

"This is going to be slow. Real mess in here. Can you lot keep watch while we sort it out?" Hunter murmured, before he placed the torch in his mouth and started to gently move cables out of the way, trying to see underneath or behind them.

Aswon moved up to the edge of the T-junction and glanced around the corner, pulling back quickly at what he saw.

"Camera dome, just around on the right, one-way glass. No idea if the camera is active, and if it's facing this way, a pair of cameras split down the corridor or a wide-angle lens."

"Can you take it out, Aswon?"

"I could Kai. But based on what Marius and Shimazu did here on their first visit, we might not have to. They might have their camera system down still, waiting for a replacement. Or it might be just cycling through, and taking the camera out would raise an alarm. From their description, and what we've seen of the locks, I don't think security is too tight here, so how about I just get my roll of tape and fashion a blindfold for the dome. When we're ready to go, I'll just lean around the corner and slap it over the top. Should stop it seeing us, won't trigger the alarm until we're in motion."

"Sounds like a plan. I guess we just listen and wait then. I'll head down to by the stairs door if you stay here?" Kai waited for Aswon to nod in agreement and then headed down towards the stairs door, staring out of the window at the city scape below.

"I'm going to try getting into the apartment again, carefully. Away from the shrine, see if I can get some more information." Tads lowered herself to the floor, frowning a little as she put her hand on something sticky that sucked at the thin gloves she, like the rest of the team, was wearing. Once she was settled, she gently pushed through the wall and started to scout out the apartment, working around through the various rooms. The end closest to the lift appeared to be a master bedroom with a changing room and en-suite bathroom, with a single door leading out into the corridor. That, in turn, led off to the family bathroom, a smaller room that looked like a child's playroom and three small bedrooms all kitted out with bunk-beds – one room with two sets, the other two rooms with just one each. All of the rooms felt lived in, having personal items strewn around them, clothes piled on desks and beds and mugs, plates or cups cluttering the sides.

She slowed then, being even more cautious as she pushed towards the other end of the apartment – where the long kitchen / diner / living space was located. She gave the hallway a quick going over, spotting the shoe rack overflowing with pairs of shoes and boots, indicating that either someone here had a bit of a shoe fetish, or there really were more like eight people crammed into the apartment. The coat rack was equally full, with lots of adult coats and a small selection of child sized jackets, printed in bright colours.

Easing into the kitchen, she spotted a woman working away, cleaning the counters and tidying up. She looked to be fairly old, and Tads mentally slotted her into the position of Ngun's wife. She wasn't magically active, and had only a datajack installed, so almost certainly was a low threat. She watched her for a minute as she cleaned her kitchen, just to be sure, before moving on and finding somewhere she could peek through, just one eye breaking the surface and look beyond the kitchen units that formed a barrier splitting the cooking area from the rest of the room.

As she peered through her cover, she spotted the shrine running down the middle of the table, a long wooden block with holes for incense to rest in, along with some markings that might have cultural significance – she had no idea what they said or meant, but she could tell they were not magical themselves. Just on the other side of the dining table though, she could see the spirit, holding onto the small child and spinning him round in the air. That changed things – a lot. For the spirit to be interacting with the child it had to be not just manifested as visible apparition, but actually materialised, taking on a solid physical form. Spirits didn't generally like doing that, as it grounded them in the material world and made them much more vulnerable to damage.

Beyond that though, it indicated a degree of familiarity and comfort of the spirt with the people there, and of them with it – it was going to be much more tightly integrated into their family than a mere magical guard dog or alarm spirit.

She faded back, unwilling to risk getting spotted, but she was pretty sure the people she'd seen before were probably still watching the trid unit in the corner of the room, sprawled out over the settees positioned along the wall. That gave them about four adult males in the living area, an adult female in the kitchen, one child and one spirit in the dining area that they had to deal with. Tads eased back out of the apartment, returned to her body and then started to talk, describing the layout of the apartment and the people she'd seen, ending with her description of the spirit.

"We should stick to the agreed plan. Based on that report, I believe the spirit will be more hostile than we had hoped, but I believe that we had a contingency for that. If it does attack us, it satisfies the criteria that Shimazu has set." The voice was slightly breathy as he transmitted his message, as Marius reached over Hunter, holding cables up out of the way while the ork tried to trace pipework and determine which systems were live in the confusing mass.

"Maybe we can fake up a delivery? A parcel that needs to be signed for or something. Some reason to get at least one of them up to the door to deal with separately." Aswon suggested.

"Nein! Just stick to the plan. Why do we have to change anything? Surely this is a simple operation, we should not make it any more complicated than it needs to be!" He sounded exasperated now, an edge of frustration coming through his voice.

"The spirit is almost certainly going to be hostile to anyone entering the apartment and doing anything to the family – even if we're just checking them over and making sure we're not killing them. It will see us as intruders, and probably try and deal with us. And a spirit in it's home domain is not something to trifle with!"

"And I do not want to have to strike it. If it's playing with the child, it has an understanding of human life, of values. It's not an unthinking elemental, or some simple watcher spirit. And it's not an animal acting on base instinct. I do not want to have to attack this spirit." The edge of stubborn obstinacy crept back into Shimazu's voice.

"Ok, settle down people, settle down. Shimazu – I hear what you're saying. But think about these people and what they do. This guy is the same as Lo Han, and we know what he's up to. He's arranged to kidnap a child, and threaten to murder him piece by piece to make Chun fight. We know they're not honourable. The kid – well, that's just a kid, I'm happy to believe that he's innocent, and we'll do everything we can to keep them safe. But the adults know what they're doing, and are doing it anyway. So if they know, then the spirit must know… and that means it's just as evil as they are. Just think it through… We can't let that spirit stop us, we need to take it out, IF, it interferes. I'm more than happy not to deal with it at all if we can persuade it to leave us alone."

"I have an idea. One that might make the spirit happy, and Shimazu." Kai and Shimazu waited for Aswon to continue, staring at each other, unwilling to budge from their positions. "Once we've released the gas, and hopefully knocked them all out, we knock on the door, or gain entry and just tell the spirit we're from the gas company. If it's too dumb to understand, it's too dumb to reason – and Shimazu should have no problem dealing with it. But if it does understand, then it should get that we're here to help the people, and let us in to give them medical attention. And we will – making sure it's watching or distracted by us, while Tads does her mind probe on Ngun. We've got a good idea of what questions we need to ask, and if Tads doesn't need to relay the questions and answers to us, she can just do it much faster and get on with it…."

"Ok, that sounds reasonable." Kai looked over at Shimazu who considered for a moment, then gave a tiny shrug. He clearly still felt a little uncomfortable with the whole idea, but didn't raise any arguments to Aswon's idea. "So, Hunter can go in talking about gas leaks and detection. Shimazu can do some medical checking, as can I – we'd be the medical team attached to the gas company workers. Aswon, you and Hunter can be walking bits of kit around and talking chemistry nonsense, and Marius you can check the equipment and turn off the electrics – making sure any surveillance equipment or panic buttons are offline. That should work."

They rolled the plan around for another minute, trying to plan what they were going to do, until Hunter interrupted them.

"Hush, you lot. Ok, we got the right pipes. Just hold that up a bit higher, Marius, that's it, thanks. Right, yeah – we got the inflow pipe for this apartment isolated. I'm just attaching the bottle to it now. When you give the word, we can crack it open and flush the neurostun into the apartment, then it's just a matter of waiting a few minutes for it to kick in. Once we're happy they're all knocked out, we can shut off the valve and disconnect the bottle, then wait ten minutes for the gas to disperse."

"That's a long time for the spirit to go crazy in there…" Aswon warned.

"Well, we can try to run the HVAC system and suck out the gas, venting it up to the roof. That'll shorten the time a bit, but we do run the risk of getting a sniff of the gas ourselves when we go in. That's not something I think any of us want!"

"Ok team, is everyone ready? Sound off…"

"Tads, go."

"Aswon, ready."

"Yeah, ready. Begrudgingly," Shimazu added.

"We are ready in here. Both of us."

"Ok, let's crack it." Hunter twisted the valve as Kai gave the order, and he heard the hissing as the gas flooded through the angled valve fitting he'd attached to the air conditioning system. Beads of frosted droplets coalesced onto the top of the bottle as the temperature dropped with the rapid expansion of the bottle's contents, and the pressure gauge dropped steadily as the gas flooded into the apartment.

Aswon listened carefully, filtering out the howl of the wind, the breathing of the rest of the team, the faint sound of music from one of the other apartments – straining for a change in sounds that were transmitted through the apartment walls. He heard the cries and gurgles of the child playing fade away, and a moment later a thud as a body hit the ground somewhere in the apartment.

"Targets down, at least some of them."

"Hunter, give us ten more seconds of gas, then stop the flow, and start the air con units up please, let's try and suck out what's in there. Aswon, let's get that camera taken care of."

Kai reached down and started the stopwatch function on his phone, the seconds counting up as he tried to work out just how long they could leave it before breaking into the apartment, without gassing themselves into unconsciousness…