Chapter 2.3

[yhlee]

[Housekeeping notes: we're fast-forwarding a bit to the security conference itself. Y'all can be assumed to have obtained anything reasonable during the shopping trip, from toys for the mothlings to jams for Sasha, and whatever else. We can also assume that Seyli more than adequately trained the Lanterner assassins in the use of the equipment sold to them.]

The Cantata docked smoothly in its assigned berth at the conference's hosting station. Remi promised that he would keep the mothlings out of sight, although it seemed suspiciously clear that he was looking forward to running intelligence tests on them in the guise of "games" manufactured with the aid of the matter printer and some toy schematics he picked up during the shopping trip.

Meanwhile, Fluffy the Vraselian pseudo-dragon keeps having to be shooed out of various public areas and appears to be building a nest out of scavenged materials.

It wasn't too difficult getting basic tools/implements/weapons past the conference's security. Paranoia is high, but so are distractions. The designated "dueling fan" is within sight at the far end of a hall with highly decorated vendor booths and poster displays. She is plump, wide-eyed, and deceptively excitable in affect, although Seyli knows from working with her during the trip that she's a quick study and she's really good with knives. She is, in fact, in duelist cosplay, complete with a hot pink Space Styrofoam boffer weapon.

Two booths away from the Lanterner "dueling fan," General Shuos Jedao can be seen with his aide, talking seriously to a highly muscular, tattooed, and decorative company representative. The banner behind the booth advertises "delicious hazelnut gianduja" ration packs laced with various popular stimulants.

---

[NOTE: So there are two big options for getting involved in this move!
(a) Part of the extraction team removing Jedao, or
(b) Staying behind and preparing the Cantata for extraction. In particular, Remi is looking for one or more volunteers to help him socialize and/or test the mothlings.

Obviously, you're welcome to take a third option if one occurs to you. If you need help brainstorming involvement, please feel free to message me or ask in the comments.]

Comments

fun with drugs!

[bariolage]

[For the record, anyone who does go - and I am honestly not sure where Ione would best be placed, so I think Sasha's opinion would be needed, but she'd be happy to both scientist-physician with Remi and help with extraction - received an injection at least 6 hours beforehand that was an antidote to the levo-duboisine so that you're not super suggestible or forgetting the last hour yourselves!]

Re: fun with drugs!

[yhlee]

[I've looked up anticholinergic drugs and am curious, for my own information, as to how long the effects usually would be expected to last from the dosage that Ione has prepared.]

Re: fun with drugs!

[bariolage]

[So I was going to send you a nice informative email about all the deets about my fictionalizing of a real drug and what Sasha had Ione do (we discussed this via Discord) to what exactly and how it works, and then ... the brick pile of depression wall decided to collapse firmly upon my head my first hour at work and it was suddenly an insurmountable task. Basically this is a long-winded apology because you should have already known the answer to this and I flaked. XD

Using the Magic Handwave of RP, we are going to assume the characters guessed how long their task would take them accurately, even if I OOCly don't have a clue, and then assume that's the amount of time that Ione calibrated it to take (having had Sasha assign her someone else to help her with the mathy parts) ... add approximately an hour onto that time. Then it wears off, with everyone dosed having no recollection of what happened, because the brain is just not recording during any of that time (anyone who has ever had surgery, this is what happened to you).

I hope that's clear enough, and I can write a quick email out explaining what she made if needed!]

Re: fun with drugs!

[yhlee]

[No worries, Rue! I know you've had Stuff going on, and real life always takes precedence. I appreciate the information, thank you!]

Location, location

[zuhrovet]

[How close are the other assassins to Jedao? Where is our booth in relation to the others?]

Re: Location, location

[yhlee]

[The other assassins are down the hall and moseying on closer. Say they're about 15 meters away, largely because that's close to the length of a fencing piste and therefore is a distance that I have a sense of. They don't have a clear shot at him due to passersby--enough to make for witnesses, not enough to be too crowded. Your booth is about 10 meters away in the other direction, and at the moment anyone manning the booth has a good view of what's going on.]

Re: Location, location

[zuhrovet]

[Does the station let servitors or drones wander around, or does it keep things fairly clear?]

Re: Location, location

[yhlee]

[There are definitely servitors and drones to deal with the inevitable cruft of soda cans, unwanted business cards, and craftily "abandoned" Space USB Sticks.

I am suddenly realizing I lack any form of servitor icon, but that's going to have to wait until my origami book arrives.]

Plan outline - paging everyone

[zuhrovet]

[Here is the substance of our current plan, after various sorts of consultation.

Ione's drug is in a diffuser inside a cleaning drone. Sasha and Alaric have used the Rahal accesses to make the code look like it was written by adherents to a minor heptarchate heresy.

Reshad is at the booth. She waits till the duelist makes her move, then triggers Ione's drug to hit an area including both Jedao and the other assassins, and fakes being disoriented as well.

Seyli, dressed as Kel, runs over and walks Jedao away from the scene. They take him to the back of a small, anonymous delivery trike which Ione is driving.

Alaric is backup (in his white coat). He retrieves Reshad.

Sasha and Aymad hack the station, keeping it from recording details that could be used to identify Ione and Seyli, and blocking any attempts at decompression.

If you don't have character plans for this move & want an assignment from Sasha, or want a different one from the plan outlined above, say the word!]

Re: Plan outline - paging everyone

[hoardingpearls]

A fine plan. Reshad would like to make it look like a malfunction - suspicious gas jetting out of a floorboard in her booth would do nicely - and if people are being too orderly about their evacuation, she'll embroider it a bit and see if she can't cause large-scale confusion to assist in the kidnapping.

Re: Plan outline - paging everyone

[yhlee]

[Suspicious gas jetting out of a floorboard can either be made to happen or faked to look like it's happening no problem.]

Re: Plan outline - paging everyone

[slybrarian]

[This seems entirely reasonable to me, and unlike to go wrong at all.]

Re: Plan outline - paging everyone

[zuhrovet]

[I am, in fact, laughing out loud.]

Re: Plan outline - paging everyone

[venndaai]

[OKAY I think I was in a bit of a fog this past month(...s) but I am back and want to join in the fun and also it'd be neat to have a Rahal around for fun with scrying? Could Sulen do anything useful like participate in the distraction?]

Re: Plan outline - paging everyone

[zuhrovet]

[It wouldn't astonish me if there were other assassins Flute didn't tell us about, so having a Rahal around to scry for signs of stress makes a lot of sense!]

Re: Plan outline - paging everyone

[kese_seyli]

[Seyli's dubious but is committed to acting with this plan for the time being. In the downtime and planning periods people might have realized that while Seyli isn't stupid, they aren't anywhere near a shining star of intelligence. They do better with direct orders and clearly stated plans.]

may we have Jedao? - paging Aymad and extraction team

[zuhrovet]

Sasha's in her office, monitoring everything. She has feeds from the team members' lokwors, and is keeping an eye on the station atmospheric controls. She thinks she has blocked Spider and Firecracker's attempts to meddle with those systems, but she isn't taking that for granted. She's engaged in an attack on the station's surveillance cameras in the vicinity of the team's booth, trying to make it look like just another conference prank.

Aymad had time to work on the assassins' lokwors during the transit; Spider and Firecracker should also encounter glitches when monitoring through those channels.

Re: may we have Jedao? - paging Aymad and extraction team

[yhlee]

Sasha and anyone who is watching is thus able to see when the duelist cosplayer Lanterner pounces on Jedao and whips out, from her costume, a binder with an entire two-page spread full of Jedao duelist trading cards, including some rare editions. For a fleeting moment, Jedao's expression is comically dismayed before he politely attempts, with no success, to excuse himself. The duelist cosplayer gushes at him and gets up so close, waving the binder, that she's got to be blocking line of sight for at least a couple of the assassins. She has a gold Space Sharpie for him to sign. It looks like she's taking her role very seriously.

Spider and Firecracker do not, yet, seem to have gotten around Sasha's block.

Re: may we have Jedao? - paging Aymad and extraction team

[venndaai]

Sulen, wearing a badge saying they represent a fictitious shipping company, is pretending to browse at a booth across the room, and also looking out for anyone acting suspiciously.

Re: may we have Jedao? - paging Aymad and extraction team

[kese_seyli]

Seyli's not far from Jedao, Kel uniformed, looking bored and distracted even as they have their eyes on the scene playing out with the cosplayer duelist. Close enough to intercept but not in anyone's line of sight.

Re: may we have Jedao? - paging Aymad and extraction team

[hoardingpearls]

Reshad, representing a fictitious company and doing her best to sell an entirely unreal piece of software to someone at a price that would be questionable even if it existed, watches the duelist accost Jedao. "Excuse me," she says to her mark, and slides sideways in her booth, as if going to see if someone else is more likely to buy.

She taps a 'ready' signal into her lokwor, watching the duelist at work. She could be doing something already, something hidden in the pen or under the binder - or she could be setting up.

Impatience won't help, so she doesn't trip the gas just yet.

Extraction continued in a new wider thread

[venndaai]

Sulen is still keeping an eye on the 'cook' and the other assassins.

Re: Extraction continued in a new wider thread

[yhlee]

The "cook"'s signifier flickers. She beams at no one in particular, then announces very loudly, "The voice in my head wants me to look for the general! Is anyone here a general?" She's looking around in a muddled fashion, in the wrong direction--at the moment.

Re: Extraction continued in a new wider thread

[zuhrovet]

[Can Sasha tell whether the "cook" is receiving instructions electronically?]

Re: Extraction continued in a new wider thread

[yhlee]

[Yup, it's just shown up now in Sasha's readouts, and the activity seems to have Firecracker's signature flamboyance, which is not helping him avoid detection.]