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Babylon 5: Outrageous Fortune


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Ashley's mouth quirks in a wry, lopsided smile. "Fair enough. I'm all for getting out of here, but first...are you just going to walk away from Tryce after what he did?"

She looks over towards the computer core.

"And second...Kevin, Sarhat...is there someone else back there? What set Tryce off like that?"

(OOC - As I understand it, Reveille's been banned from the boards, so his PC is pretty much an NPC now. Dunno how we wanna work with that.)
 

Ashley's mouth quirks in a wry, lopsided smile. "Fair enough. I'm all for getting out of here, but first...are you just going to walk away from Tryce after what he did?"

Raive looks up at the dangling Tryce, and back at Ashley. He flashes his dangerous smile again.

"With his system shut down, he's just a little fat man with delusions of grandeur hanging by his own wires," he says. "I'm sure one of his other lackeys will turn up to get him down, but he's not worth my time any more."

With a disgusted shake of his head, Raive walks like a stalking beast towards the exit, but Ashley's next words bring him up short.

"And second...Kevin, Sarhat...is there someone else back there? What set Tryce off like that?"

"I thought she was with you," says Raive.

All eyes turn to the computer core, where there is a grille dangling from the wall, and a trail of blood leading into it.

"Near as I can tell she crashed his communications links," says Raive. "Guess she saved all of us, in a way." He shrugs, all interest in the matter dismissed instantly.
"We going or what? You got somewhere we can lurk?"
 

"Hmph" Sarhat shrugs and flips his pike to it's collapsed form. He pulls the hood back on and goes outside to check the surroundings. If everything looks normal he motions the others that it's safe.
 

"Raive, don't leave me!" calls Tryce. Raive ignores him, watching Sarhat check the coast is clear.

"I can help you," he tries. "Get me down and I'll help you get the tech you need."

"He's lying," says Raive without looking round. "He needs me to find it."

"Don't listen to him," shouts Tryce. "I have the information, I know where you can get some."
 

Ashley looks back, and takes one last stab at Tryce's mind, looking not only for whether or not he was being truthful, but for hints about what that information might be...if it was anything but a ruse.
 

[SBLOCK=Ashley]
Luckily, Tryce is too distracted to try his scan-blocking technique this time, and Ashley is easily able to determine the Tyrce is bluffing. He doesn't have the information, but is planning on being able to find something out through his contacts and surveillance.

Something else occurs to her - the techniques that Tryce used to block her scan were fairly well known, but few people can actually carry them off successfully. To do so requires specialised training, usually only found in professionals in intelligence/counter-intelligence. If Tryce is just a two-bit crime lord, where did he get this training?
[/sblock]
 

"We're going to stick with Raive, Tryce," Ashley told him. "You might be telling the truth, but we know Raive is. I'm sure someone will be along sometime to help you with that. In the meantime...think about dieting."

She turns her back on the crime lord and follows Raive out.
 


Later:

Tribon City Middle Tier, Lison.
0100 Earth Standard Time

A strange group sits in a room in a simple business hotel, with a view over the cavern of Tribon's Middle Tier. The room is paid for in Centauri ducats by Raive Timogen, to prevent Quentin Tryce from tracing electronic purchaces.

"Maybe that strange woman put him down hard when she disrupteed his system," he says, "but a snake like Tryce doesn't survive for as long as he has without a back-up plan."

Sarhat and Kevin stand ready for action, keeping an eye on the doors and window. Raive sits on a stack of towels on one end of the bed, stripped to the waist revealing a physique of muscle and sinew mixed with scars, wires and plating. [OOC: I picture a tough but slightly disturbing appearance, like Iggy Pop].
Vurk and Sethyk are poking around in his cyberware. Local anasthetic is provided by a bottle of Lurker whiskey and neuronal dampening by Ashley [OOC: it's the opposite to the Pain effect, found in Lurker's Guide to Telepaths]. Raive has been filling in some background on Quentin Tryce.

"He came from outside, bringing in money and contacts. Set himself up as this kind of information broker, liked to have his nose in everyone's business and then sell secrets to the highest bidder, often the people who wanted to keep the secret. The more money he got, the more cyber he fitted, got this crazy notion about his little 'Nexus' that you saw. He hired me a few times to get him some black market tech, but my main job is bringing in LOX from the surface. Recently he had me running a private contract for him, some little side deal he has going on, hoarding LOX round at Sethyk's." He shrugs, causing consternation for Vurk and Sethyk.

"I dunno, price of oxygen's going up so I guess he was setting up a bit of speculation, huh? These days, more and more oxygen runners are getting hurt up there, some teams never come back. Dead vac and a landscape like the back end of Hell can do that to you. A guy like me needs patching up, guess I went a bit overboard." He looks at his artificial arm, sadly. "I dunno if I overdid it, or if it was Tryce's control making me crazy." He turns to look at Sethyk. "Did you help him, old friend?"

"Tchk! No! Not me Raive, trrk." The cascor looks quite alarmed.

"Must have some other cutter working on me too," says Raive. He seems to take Sethyk's word readily, although in the short time you've known the little alien you've noticed that he tends not to lie. "Seems I upset Alexis too, huh? Kid's got a good heart, but too much baggage. You see her, tell her I'm sorry.

"Anyway, you people want me to get you some Tal tech? I charge 20 000 credits plus expenses for a week's work, more if the job takes longer. Now, it's not my business why you want it but if that fella over there, human fighting like a Minbari, ain't a Ranger I'll chop my other hand off. So I figure Sheridan's little empire can afford my price, huh?"
 

Into the Woods

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