ic Knock on the Door Job(IC)

[Fox]

"Huh. Risky to play dress-up," Alice muttered, pulling her tools back out; she'd stowed them away in her nearly-flat backpack after disabling the alarm, but they were in a quick-access pouch for exactly just such a need for...well. For quick access. "Always wanted to go in incognito, I guess, but I'm a little short for a stormtrooper. I know they don't have cameras, 'cos I was just in with those taps, but anyone wanna take odds on whether they memorized patrols or whether the other guards - the real ones - are just that dumb?"

 

She frowned at the now-exposed alarm panel's innards for a moment before performing some surgical re-routing, pushing the modified panel cover back over her handwork. "Delay's in. Ghosting," she announced, lightly bouncing up one wall and into the ceiling vent; the cover she'd stashed therein came back out at an angle, pulled back into place with deft fingers. "Vents have too much echo. Let me know when you need me."

[alderwitch]

"Sure, I can -- wait, what?" She protested, fingers already flying across the keyboard as she began to quickly throw a wrench into communications. She twisted to check that Lou was still right there and when he wasn't, she cursed low and long in a truly foul string of Spanish mutters. "Oh, I hate this plan. I hate this plan a lot. Why can't you be bait? Why's it gotta be the cute chicana, hey? I didn't sign up for no horror movie bullshit, you know."

 

The temptation to bolt was strong but despite her kvetching, Sofia was a professional and she wouldn't bail midjob. Complain, oh she'd absolutely do that. "Next time Lou gets to be the bait!"

[Gizmo]

"Honey and vinegar, kid," Lou's low voice answered from somewhere in the shadows as he slid out of his suit jacket and deposited it silently behind a shelf and out of the way. The bearded man hadn't survived his varied succession of careers without knowing how to stay out of sight when necessary but he couldn't fault anyone for failing to anticipate measured grace coming from his slouching frame of meat locker muscle. Out of view he straightened and rolled his shoulders, legs tensing and hands closing deliberately into fists. He was only going to get one shot to capitalize on the element of surprise and he wasn't planning on using his ace in the hole around a bunch of last-minute understudies.

[angrydurf]

"Let him do his thing."  came Xaviers all too calm reply, "Need you on their systems to clear out the target files and locate the originals."  he explained seemingly unconcerned by the shifting foundations of the job.  

 

Lou and Sophia could hear the 'guards' approaching speaking in hushed Japanese echoing down the hall.  They went silent as they reached the door sitting slightly ajar and pulled their weapons as they pushed the door open, "Wolf Security!"  demanded the apparent leader mangling the company they supposedly worked for.  "Hands up and step away from the computer."  

 

"Alice we need eyes on the egress."  came Xaviers collected demand, "We may have company waiting outside."  he informed as he awaited the sounds of inevitable violence from Lou.  "I'm relocating, real guards are remaining in place."

[Fox]

Uh huh. This is why Alice always took to the rooftops if she could help it, she reflected as she backed through the vents until she could get turned around and headed toward a vertical duct piece. Rooftops were safe. Rooftops were fast, if the buildings were close enough together. Nobody was ever "waiting outside" for you on a rooftop.

 

Well. There was the once. But that didn't count.

 

She waited on the second story of the library for any patrols to go by, counting out her heartbeats until she could slither her way out from behind the duct cover and slide up against the wall next to a window facing out toward their planned escape route. C'moooooon, two guys. I'll settle for three guys. The Pickle can tackle one, and I can drop on one, and everyone else can dogpile one, probably. Three guys or less.

[Gizmo]

The armed guards surrounding Soifa became aware of Lou's fist before they saw the man himself, the meaty appendage crashing into the face of the man who's spoken. One moment the guard had had his full attention on the hacker and in the next the space where his head had been was occupied by a trail of red and the echo of tearing cartilage. By the time his colleagues recognized the dark form that had appeared in their midst as a man Lou had already knocked the barrel of the next guard's gun out of the way and brought his knee up into its owner's stomach with a crunch. An elbow to the back of the neck as his target doubled over left two unconscious forms on the floor while the enforcer calmly stood between the remaining men and Sofia.

 

"Shoulda brought more guys," he suggested, lazily flexing the fingers in his hands to pop the knuckles.

[alderwitch]

Sofia stayed resolutely in place, her fingers flying despite the command to drop what she was doing. She didn't have the greatest poker face in the world so her distress was easy to read in the few seconds before Lou made himself a much more appealing target, as was the relief that swiftly followed once the man formed a solid wall between her and potential threats. "Muchas gracias." She murmured with the first appreciative gaze she'd directed in Lou's direction as her fingertips flew over her device, swiftly pulling the information that they required. 

 

"I have to pull the originals," she explained both to Lou and the rest of the team. "In the data bank but I got this part taken care of. You.... need any backup?" She asked, before adding, "'Cuz you sure don't seem to need it."

[angrydurf]

Peering from her hidden locale Alice could make out a suspiciously nondescript van.  Two heavily tattooed men of Japanese descent sat in the driver and passenger seat.  It was impossible from her angle to see if the van contained backup or was merely a getaway vehicle, but it had clear lines of sight on the group's planned point of egress.

 

Inside two of the men now obviously not actual guards fell to the floor before they even realized Lou was there.  All attention was now on the big man leaving Sophia free to take care of acquiring the goods.  Turning on the brawler suddenly in their midst the men were at least bright enough not to try to fire on him when they would be caught in their own crossfire.  With a slow hiss of breath the largest of them spun firing off a dizzying a barrage of high speed kicks in the air directly in front of Lou, a display to dishearten rather than harm.  The rest took a more direct approach as the extended retractable batons and swung in unison high, low and from behind trying to overwhelm with sheer numbers.

 

[Fox]

Alice hissed, the air passing between her teeth barely-audible even in the quiet of the library as she looked down at the van. Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope "Unfriendlies sitting on our egress," she quietly confirmed, scowling at them in the hopes that she'd manifest the power to make goons spontaneously combust. That'd be nice.

 

A lot of her life would be better if she could make people spontaneously combust, she was pretty sure. "Minimum two guys, tattoos. They're in a van, though, and I don't know what's in it. If it's two, we can take 'em, but fighting in the open's gonna get risk attention. If the van's fulla more cheap ink, they'll at least slow us down way too long." She bit her lip, trying to weigh the odds. She didn't like these odds. Crews, what the hell. I'd be gone already. Empty-handed, but, y'know, gone. "Back-up exit?"

[Gizmo]

Clearly unimpressed by the flashy show of martial arts prowess Lou bobbed down slightly and to one side to avoid two of the batons entirely while taking the third attack on a raised forearm with nothing but a soft grunt. He continued the weave to come up abruptly in front of the 'guard' who'd been attempting to distract him. One arm shot out like a cannonball, grabbing the man's head with a palm large enough to cover most of his face and drive it backward into the doorframe. The impact left a dent in the cheap moulding as the showboat fell atop the shoes of one of his unconscious allies. With a disdainful little shake of his head Lou turned back to the remaining fighters, their numbers now cut in half. "I'm good," he told Sofia. "Appreciate the offer."

[angrydurf]

"Back exit is out."  Xavier confirmed over the earpiece.  "Alright, stop toying with them and get moving."  He instructed his phrasing vaguely reminiscent of the that tossed around the boxing gyms Lou had built his early career around.  "We're going out the front."  he finished and they could hear a  door slam as he prepared the new getaway vehicle.

 

"Alice meet them at the elevator we're going with the housekeeping scam."  and with that cryptic instruction he sped toward the main entrance to await their egress.

[alderwitch]

"I got a taser," Sofia called over her shoulder by way of explanation as she was clearly not a fighter. Her dark sneakers squeaked as she sprinted down the databanks with clear purpose. They weren't labeled, certainly but they didn't need to be. She already knew where the location was from her files. With a few clicks to open the banks, she had the masters in hand. "Xavier, I got 'em. We're good here.... Uh, did anyone else get briefed on the 'housekeeping scam'?" It was entirely possible, Sofia supposed that she'd missed that somewhere in the planning stages as she MAY have tuned out when it hadn't directly concerned her but even-odds that Xavier hadn't bothered to brief anyone yet on it. 

 

Tucking the hard drive under one arm, she booked it back to where Lou was bouncing hoodlum's faces off of the wall, "Niiiiice."

[Fox]

Alice had made record time through the vents, though - as much as she'd like to take pride in her vent-crawling skills - at least part of that was due to a somewhat undignified and barely-controlled slip down a floor of vent shafts. She scolded herself for letting the rush make her sloppy, gently removing the cover to the closet vent access and sliding out head-first. "I don't pay good attention sometimes," she admitted with entirely less shame than she ought to have, pulling her feet free and working the crick out of her neck as she hid the signs of her ingress. "But, um. Advice? Maybe don't announce you have a weapon. It makes the big mean dudes want to punch YOU, and makes it harder to stick 'em with the weapon. Tasers and mace are pretty great if no one else knows you have 'em."

 

The young thief looked around, taking stock of her...resources. Housekeeping. Right, okay. "Pretty sure I know what the housekeeping scam is, though. I'll get stuff ready on my end."

[angrydurf]

The 'guards' paused though only briefly as Lou casually disabled yet another of their number and remained unfazed by their attacks.  The surprise was however short lived as it became clear Sophia was making off with the goods they were there for as well.  Despite losses they redoubled efforts unleashing a flurry of blows with their batons in a last ditch attempt to overwhelm the big man through sheer ferocity.  Most of the blows missed or fell harmlessly across the broad of the street fighters back and shoulders but one well aimed shot took him across the ribs with a resounding crack that would have felled a lesser man.

 

Despite their losses none reached forthe radios on their belts or otherwise tried to alert the rest of securty of what was going on, removing all doubt as to their pedigree.  If the ink flashing from thier exposed skin as they fell was any indication probably some of the newcomer yakuza that had been putting the squeeze on the newly built up airport district.

 

 

[Gizmo]

Lou grunted as the baton struck his ribs, a flicker of anger cutting through the detached expression he'd worn since appearing from the shadows. "I'm about done here anyway," he responded to what must have seemed like the empty air to his opponents just before exploding into action. The closest of the remaining trio received a vicious one-two combination to the jaw that sent him reeling to the left then the right before a third punch to the stomach doubled him over, wind driven from his lungs. The other two made the mistake of standing too close to each other as Lou stalked toward them. He grabbed each of their heads and slammed them together with enough force to lift their feet from the ground then spiked them downward to bounce awkwardly off of the floor before falling into a groaning, tangled pile.

 

Muttering to himself Lou prodded his ribs through his dress shirt for a few moments before retrieving his jacket and slipping it back on with a wince. "You got what we needed?" he asked Sofia, barely seeming winded from his exertions. "Let's go."

[alderwitch]

"We're good! I got it." Sofia caught up to Lou, to stare wide-eyed down at the fallen men. "That's... impressive." She hesitated over the word choice, uncertain what else to call it before she caught the wince, "You hurt?"

 

Concern sharpened her voice although she wasn't about to slow down until Lou stopped. She didn't see any blood so that was probably a good sign, right? "I know a bit'a first aid. Stabbed?" 

Edited August 26, 2017 by alderwitch

[angrydurf]

"Get dressed and clear space in the cart for Lou and the goods."  Xavier instructed as they heard whatever vehicle he had acquired roll up to the front of hte building and a door slide open.  Apparently a van then.  They were then treated to a stream of well inflected dominican spanish, all of it crude, most of it demanding some subset of 'lazy, worthless, and probably female?' workers extract themselves so they could get to the next job followed by shouts from the underpaid rentacops the city had working the lobby.  

 

"Their radios won't even be tied into the wolfram frequencies if they think to raise an alarm."  He offered between rounds of complaints and arguing in broken english with the guards.  "Get to the main entrance and keep walking."  he explained cryptically and jumped back into character of the put upon sleazeball manager of a low rent cleaning service.

[Gizmo]

"Nah, bruised rib maybe. Nothing you gotta worry about," Lou assured Sofia as they rounded the corner to the elevator where Alice was waiting. He was a little annoyed with himself for getting sloppy and toying with the security guards, maybe showing off a little bit but you didn't wade into a fight with six guys and then act surprised when you took a some licks in the process. The note of concern in the hacker's voice brought on a brief pang of guilt for getting her into something significantly more dangerous than sitting behind a computer but he shoved that away with professional focus. Best thing to do was stay on mission and they'd all get home safe and paid.

 

Looking at the covered trolly the thief had rolled up he didn't bother to suppress a grimace. "I'm supposed to fit under that? I look like a gymnast? I give you that impression?"

[Fox]

Alice handed (threw) an appropriately-sized uniform to (at) Sofia as she arrived, pulling open the cover to reveal an industrial-sized laundry trolley that was only mostly empty; a few of the unusable uniforms she left in the bottom, and the rest of her small collection got pulled out to rest on the hamper's edge, apparently for use in later disguising Lou's human-in-a-bag profile. She'd already donned a uniform of her own, complete with a matching cap that she'd...acquired, somehow, the bill pulled down to cover her face.

 

The look she shot Lou as she arranged things said that she'd probably heard of sympathy, once. "Get in the hamper." Maybe she'd read about it once in a book. "I am not joining you in a cell twice because you don't want a stiff neck or a cramped leg or whatever you babies think happens in small spaces," she hissed, looking up at him from under her hat and trying very hard to be intimidating. It sort of worked? "I just pulled myself by my fingertips through like a mile of tiny vents to put a delay on an alarm that's still going to go off, so get in the hamper and be all quiet-like and maybe I still get paid."

[alderwitch]

"This is racist," Sofia felt the need to note as she dutifully took the uniform that was tossed at her, but despite her complaints, she stripped down to her skivvies swiftly and tossed her clothes in the bottom of the hamper that Lou was expected to inhabit. "Its profiling, is what it is."

 

She grumbled as she hauled on the scratchy maid's uniform, her sneakers thankfully nondescript enough to not draw second glances. The multicolor hair, though that was liable to draw a few raised eyebrows so she quickly knotted a handkerchief over the plait she put into it with quick fingertips, tucking the bulk of her curls under and away before she pulled the cap on top of the thing. She couldn't help but point out to Alice as she picked the towels up to adorn Lou with once he eased his frame into the small space, "Pulling yourself through tiny vents is sort of what you do. That's like me getting mad about having to pull the data or Lou getting upset about getting hit."

 

She paused once and then added pointedly, "Or Xavier getting mad about having to tell everyone else what to do all the time."

[angrydurf]

"You'll never pass as a cleaning lady."  Xavier replied through the earpiece between shouts at the guards about where they could stuff their regulations about his parking and how many more offices he had to clean tonight.  "The LXHK3 plus has an interior dimension of thirty eight inches by twenty four inches by forty two inches with the internal shelving stowed."  He rattled off mechanically, "With your height and build you should fit in a knees down fetal position unless you have developed scoliosis in the last half hour."  he explained succinctly leaving off the discomfort such a position would put on injured ribs.  

 

After another bout of expletives explaining the assorted acts the much put upon guards could commit with their mother and or sister he replied to Sofias continued complaint with a simple count, "You have one minute thirty eight seconds until the alarm sounds, at a standard elevator speed it will take you thirty seconds to ascend to the main floor, leaving you sixty eight seconds to get from the service elevator to the lobby."  he paused for a long moment, "To put it another way less talk more hustle."

[Gizmo]

Lou didn't make any effort to conceal a brief appreciative glance at the muscle tone revealed while Sofia changed but also didn't waste any time clamouring into the trolly with a surprising amount of grace for someone adamant that he wasn't a gymnast. His varied careers had seen him following people as they scrambled over fences or sprinted through littered alleyways too often for his complaints to ring entirely true. "You say it like that and it sounds like my job is $#!%," he observed while curling up, wincing as the bruise on his side objected. He at least attempted not to put his shoes all over Sofia's discarded outfit. "Alright, let's go get Alice paid. She's had a tough day and all."

[Fox]

"Yep," Alice replied with precisely zero discernible irony, taking a scant few seconds to eye Lou's new hiding spot with critical thought before shoving the remaining clothes and uniforms over and around him. The action was more functional than considerate, but it apparently came with some level of experience: by the time she was done, he'd have to move or pull the cover off to reveal that the cart contained a person, and not a pile of wage slave vestments. "Time to get paid."

 

By virtue of well-oiled wheels or being far stronger than her slight form would imply, it took an entirely negligible amount of time to shove the cart back into the elevator and begin their ascent. "Maybe you talk, if we've gotta or the Brain asks questions," she said, tilting her head - face still well-obscured by her cap - toward Sofia. "My Spanish is okay but no one's gonna take it from a little Asian girl, and my Japanese is real, real bad, and I'm not always so great at not mouthing off. If you can't pull the accent, though, lemme know."

[alderwitch]

"Claro que sí," Sofia said dryly, the bemusement coming across through her drawled Spanish despite any potential language barriers. She scooped up the ubiquitous spray bottle and rag from the trolley to not have her hands empty as despite the complaints she did understand how to blend in. Under her breath, she added to Lou, trusting the microphone to carry her words even if the towels obscured what she was saying, "And your job kinda is crap - no offense. I mean you were good at it, but being the person who's gotta jump towards the bullets rather than away has some serious drawbacks to it."

[angrydurf]

"Technically his job is to hit them first."  Xavier pointed out, "When successful much less trying."  He continued to exchange complaints with the guards keeping their eyes from any monitors that might reveal where precisely the 'cleaning crew' was coming from. 

 

The elevator crawled its way up from the basement level and rang out it's arrival before disgorging its occupants.  A quick jog down the hall pushing the cart and they crossed the lobby right on schedule.  "Don't stop, you need to hit the door before the alarm sounds."  Xavier reminded as he slid the door on the side of the van open a short ramp for the trolley clanging into place.

 

One of the guards drew up holding up a hand, "Hold on there isn't any cleaning service tonight."  he asked more confusion than concern creasing his brow, "I'll need to call this i...."  By the time he finished his speech however they were already crossing the threshold. Another guard called for them to hold up as the first jogged toward the phone to call it in when the alarm sounded and the exasperated guards cursed and  turned to run onto the building the fleeing cleaners forgotten in the face of an apparent security breach.

 

Once the cart was in place and the door slid shut Xavier pulled away from the curb and made their egress, "Well done."