London - East End
The part of London with perhaps the most checkered past, East End is a slum, a run-down area famous more for being the haunt of Jack the Ripper than for anything worthwhile. Heavily bombed during the Blitz in World War II, the area was rebuilt, though urban planners were not able to cast away the impression of the area as being run down. Even though times have changed, the East End still has this checkered reputation, low-income housing rising high into the sky, modern buildings replacing old tenements, but many of the still marked with graffiti and decay. Regardless, there are pockets of industry and growth, some struggling to survive, others thriving, and they may one day finally shed the image of poverty that the East End has traditionally had.
Contents:
Gray [Incubus] [M]
Saint Savior's
Out <O>: Great Britain
West <W>: London - London Town
Gray
The human Luke Havermeyer is not very tall, no, not at 5'10", nor particularly large; he is in fact rather slight. And young, too, probably clocking in at a number somewhere in the twenties. He is certainly a well-heeled man.
He chooses to wear white, all white -- a white pinstriped suit with a white undershirt and a white tie and white leather shoes -- making his normally pale complexion seem darker. He is quite probably European, with that sort of paleness to him and his brown hair, swept back with styling gel. He would appear to be a consummate professional in every detail, down to his manicured hands.
(OOC: http://www.jrmfansite.org/gallery/pix/ukgq7.jpg for example.)
Ayin
A tall (6'2") dark-skinned young man -- early twenties surely -- of medium build, looking to be African in descent. His hair is dusty-brown in color and a bit longer than shoulderlength, starting as a widow's peak and pulled into a ponytail at the back. Or, he tries to keep his hair that way, but it's pretty slippery (shiny, too, which suggests it may be made of some sort of metal) and often slips out of place. If you look closely, you may notice that the way his skin moves across his muscles isn't quite anatomically correct, or that his breathing a little /too/ regular, or another small reason that implies that Mtafiti Talec is not fully organic.
He's wearing a black suit and matching pants, both in good enough condition that he looks respectable, but imperfect enough that he doesn't look overly formal. He is also carrying a large black suitcase.
Picture, incomplete (insert mentioned colors above in the blanks..): dimensionalarea.net/m3/ayin_logs/Mtafiti_Talec_incomplete-colors.jpg
Since its inception, the Havermeyer Consulting Agency has had a few jobs. Just simple ones. But /tough/ ones, dangerous ones, ones that are just as likely to bring the newborn Agency down in flames as they are to elevate it to the level of the 'pros'. This is one such job. Naturally, the Agency sent its best man. Well -- really, its only man, when you think about it. They sent Luke Havermeyer.
Luke Havermeyer enters the building in which his target works bearing no arms whatsoever besides the ones God gave him. He passes any security checks, and once inside, waits patiently for his turn to see the man, his target, just like any other normal person, secure in the knowledge that he is invisible, untouchable, unstoppable. They will never know what hit them.
A slightly older -- by less than a month -- business is also present, its situation not too different from that of the Havermeyer Consulting Agency's. A great opportunity is here, although its owner does not expect to lose more than a profit here should it fall through for some reason or other. Mtafiti Talec looks up from a newspaper he was ostentatiously reading as his name is called, and he gets up and strolls to the elevator.
Luke Havermeyer waits patiently, crossing his legs at the ankles and tapping one foot, an aimless rhythm. After a minute of this, he grabs a magazine and flips it open, lifting his eyes only to look at Mtafiti Talec. He wonders, vaguely, who Mtafiti Talec is, and what he is doing here. Probably just another client. Makes sense in this context. Content with this explanation, he parcels off a part of his attention and sends it back to the magazine. It has pictures of pretty people in it.
Mtafiti glances back at the main room before stepping into the elevator, his eyes settling on each person for a fraction of second. After a few moments of bland elevator music, the lift is at the third floor -- the second being for regular employees -- and he exits into a hallway. He glances around, noting several doors; one on the left, two on the right, one at the end of the hall, and proceeds to the center door and knocks on it.
Quietly, the Maverick in Luke Havermeyer's skin shifts the way energy flows within him, enabling his enhanced senses. They will certainly help, and perhaps even he will be able to listen in on Mtafiti Talec's conversation while he waits. He listens very closely.
"Come in," a deep voice calls through the tinted glass, and Mtafiti enters, closing the door behind him quietly. The man behind the desk is thin, although it looks more due to stress and long nights than his diet, and is dressed in a dark blue suit. He beckons Mtafiti to sit, and steeples his fingers.
"You know why I wish to hire your company's services?" Mtafiti pauses, then says, "Not exactly. My company received your special request, yes, but in regards to what was to be kept, it merely stated that you wished to meet me in person to discuss it."
The other man nods. "Yes. The nature of the data I--/we/, need a secure, offsite copy for, is too sensitive to be discussed over a medium as.. insecure as the Internet." Mtafiti nods, and the other continues. "We needed a company that had no ties to other organizations, and we researched your company's background quite thoroughly," Mtafiti looks bemused at this, "and clearly you have passed." And he merely nods at this with a serious expression.
Luke Havermeyer has to stop himself from looking up from his magazine again when he hears hints of the conversation going on nearby. The data -- it can only be /that/ data, the same reason that Luke Havermeyer was hired to come here. Well, great. Just wonderful. Luke sighs quietly, turning the page and shaking his head. Those pretty people. Shame on them. For the moment, however, he chooses not to act.
The man leans over, and starts whispering conspiratorily, "Even now, I can't reveal it all. We're plotti--/planning/ to reveal it over the course of the next couple of months." He leans back, and smiles. "The backup disk was completed before your arrival. I noticed on your site, you prefer to make backups on your own discs, but I would really prefer it if you would use these," he says in his normal speaking voice while unlocking one of the drawers in his desk and retrieving an object -- a whole hard-drive by the looks of it, stored in secure packaging. He hands the hard-drive over the desk to Mtafiti, who takes it gingerly. "I'll be sure to take good care of it," he says while peering at the drive.
"Thank you," the man replies with a trace of relief.
Gray tries very hard not to grind his teeth. He is getting impatient, and that is bad. Impatient people are memorable, and assassins are not. He calmly turns the next page, still tapping his foot, and briefly looks at the elevator. C'mooooon. Hurry up.
Tucking the drive into pocket inside his jacket, Mtafiti rises and bows slightly to the other. "Thank /you/, for your business," he smiles, "And good luck on your project. If you ever need this copy, just call." Leaving, he notes one of the doors in the hallway ajar, the one that had originally been on his left. He pauses to peer through the crack, but can't see anything other than large computers.. huh. But this will be something to ponder later; now he continues on to the elevator and pushes the 'Ground Floor' button.
Meanwhile, Luke Havermeyer folds his magazine closed, puts his hands in his pockets, and stands up. He walks toward the elevator, looking bored, which is probably the most truthful thing he's done all day. He watches the lights at the top denoting the elevator's current position with interest. Come to me, my prey.
And with a *Ding* the elevator comes to a stop. The doors slide open, and Mtafiti steps out.
Immediately, Luke Havermeyer moves. In his rush to enter the elevator because he is of course an impatient businessman, he accidentally runs into Mtafiti, hands coming up out of pockets in an attempt to lessen the totally accidental impact. And, of course, if there were to be anything in his hands, it would be necessarily very small, and probably the kind of thing that might accidentally stick to Mtafiti's clothing, and maybe also accidentally contain a tracking device. Oops!
"Oh, hell, excuse me," says the apparently British Havermeyer. "Sorry about that, beg pardon..." He resumes attempting to get into the elevator, now throwing out a hand to keep the doors from closing. What foolish doors.
Mtafiti exits the elevator and is promptly run into! He does some quick footwork to keep his balance and not fall over -- that would be embarrassing. And would possibly damage the drive, which would be quite bad. He almost misses the offered apology during this, but he nods slightly in the elevator's direction once he realizes it happened. Crazy businessmen. He pats himself down, checks to make sure the drive is all right (finding it still there, he thinks little of the incident) and walks toward the door, glancing about the room again and nodding to the secretary.
Pickpocketing is just not Gray's style. Or Luke Havermeyer's, for that matter.
The man in the white suit enters the elevator, presses a button, and watches the doors close. This will be quick and easy. He'll introduce a little chemical imbalance to the system, and the job will be finished just like that. Yes, poison is a gentleman's tool.
He arrives at his appointment with Mtafiti's client and -- watch carefully, now -- enters smiling, shakes the man's hand firmly, and chatters about something completely pointless and fictitious. Presumably, Mr. Mark Tyson is representing some other business venture. In reality, he is planting poison in his handshake and plotting the downfall of this entire enterprise, all for a few hours' fun and a hundred grand.
[OOC] Ayin says, "What sort of signal does the device use?"
[OOC] Gray would say one you can pick up, on account of it's your function. :D
[OOC] Gray says, "Like, you can tell there's something transmitting for sure."
[OOC] Ayin will go home, put his armor back on, and then hear it and go 'Aww crap.' XD
[OOC] Ayin says, "(Tyson, eh? The Doctor Who episode I watched earlier had a guy named Tyson in it. :D)"
[OOC] Gray is basing the assassin-for-hire persona very heavily on a character in a book I just read. <3
Mtafiti has no clue about these happenings right now, but early in his business' life he decided to make a habit of keeping an eye on clients, and when he hears about the untimely death of /this/ one, he'll... have to make a policy on what to do with dead clients' data. But considering his allegience, whichever way the wind blows, he'll likely be keeping a copy for himself; it would appear that Mr. Havermeyer has indirectly rendered the Yakuza a service.
An untimely death it will be indeed, but given this man's connections, the police will automatically suspect foul play, and perhaps give it up for an unsolvable gang crime. And Gray will laugh all the way to the bank. Sure, they'll suspect an assassin, but they'll never suspect a Maverick.
He continues his idle chit-chat. The meeting is short but sweet, and soon enough, after another firm, hearty handshake full of death, Mark Tyson leaves the man to his fate, closes the door behind him, and promptly disappears.
Security cameras in the server room will record nothing except odd warping in the image, the effect of an energy sink sitting right under them. That would be the Judas Kiss at work. They record nothing, that is, until all of the sudden, moments later, the computer banks actually begin to melt. Someone, it seems, has strategically treated them with a highly corrosive acid. And we mean /highly./
Mtafiti -- Ayin -- would make a note to never let Gray near his mess of computer stuff, if he were aware of the near-future occurances. Melting computers, augh! But he does not know, and he continues walking toward the teleportation hub at a steady pace, not thinking of anything, but merely being aware of his surroundings.
The invisible man reappears, opening the door of the client's office again. "Hi, sorry to interrupt, my keys fell out of my pocket," Mark Tyson says, smiling helplessly. He fetches them and heads out as quickly and unobtrusively as possible, walking to the elevator and leaving the building fully visible.
Now he has other business to attend to. Notably, Mtafiti Talec. He trails off into an alleyway and disappears again, cloaked in shadow. The tracking device should allow him to follow from a distance, and so he does, weaving his way through dark alleys and garages and the spaces between buildings and other places people are not meant to travel.
Gray activates his stealth mode.
Unfortunately for Ayin, the majority of his e-abilities are built into his armor, and at the moment he doesn't see the need to duck into a dark alley (call boxes are too small) to haul it out of subspace and don it. So he keeps walking, without noticing Gray.. However, his radio is giving him some oddly patterned, quiet noise, which he finds a bit annoying but is not yet becoming suspicious of.
Gray was expecting someone without extensive interception capabilities and not, you know, a Shadow Hunter, so things are really very lucky for him. He has to move double-time to keep pace with Mtafiti, given the irregular path Gray must travel, but it is easy enough. If the guy is walking, it must not be a very long way to his destination. Well, now Gray can be as patient as he needs to be. Oh yes. He can be patient to the end of the world.
Finally, the radio-noise becomes just a little /too/ annoying and Ayin stops in front of a bank, pondering what to do about it. He could probably pick out its source if he retrieved his helmet out of subspace-storage.. But perhaps he could do it without needing to stop to change, as it were. He abruptly continues walking, focusing more of his internal resources on locating the source.
The source is a very simple bit of nanotech, a 'clinger' improved by Infinity Mijinion's weapons lab, no doubt. It is located somewhere in the vicinity of Mtafiti's coat pocket simply by coincidence.
Meanwhile, Gray closes in, crawling across the rooftop of a parking garage. Also he jumps on the roofs of cars, because he's always, always wanted to do that.
[OOC] Ayin says, "--hmm, how small is the device exactly? :D"
[OOC] Gray says, "Probably small enough to be seen with Robot Eyes but difficult to remove without special tools."
After a minute or two of spending most of his concentration on the mysterious noise, he locates the source indeed placed in the aformentioned location. Ayin slows his walking and thumbs the area, staring at where /something/ ought to be-- ...ahah. He can see it now that he's actually /looking/ for it, a small tracking-device-type thing. He almost stops entirely to consider this, but thinks better of it and continues onward, speeding up and continuing to thumb it and becoming a little frustrated that it won't come off.
[OOC] Gray says, "Whoa 1 AM."
[OOC] Gray says, "Maybe it /is/ a good idea to split it up?"
[OOC] Ayin hehs.. 2 am here. Okay =o
[OOC] Gray says, "Sorry, I'm just starting to go spiral downward into my keyboard."
[OOC] Ayin pats!
[OOC] Gray says, "Will you be here tomorrow?"
[OOC] Ayin is getting pretty tired too, although I've yet to keyboardface.
[OOC] Ayin says, "Well, I might be going to see a movie at 7:30 or 9:30 EDT.. So I'll log on and stay on until/if I leave and.. let you know or something. ^^;;"
[OOC] Gray says, "I should be on earlier than that."
[OOC] Gray gets off work at like 1 PM CST.
[OOC] Ayin will log on early then. :D
[OOC] Gray says, "Cool."
[OOC] Gray says, "Presumably you'll have gone home ICly?"
[OOC] Ayin nods.
[OOC] Gray says, "And then I can do some breaking and entering or something."
[OOC] Ayin says, "Well, maybe. Let me think... He might hole up in a hotel, since he's pretty sure it's a tracking-thing."
[OOC] Gray says, "That works also."
[OOC] Ayin takes out a hotel room in.. say... Rio, and holes up with some snacks and latenight TV?
[OOC] Ayin says, "Afternoon TV. if it's early evening in London, it'd be afternoon in Rio. And I think I'm overthinking things. z.z"
[OOC] Gray snrks.
[OOC] Gray can totally imagine you hanging out in a hotel eating chips and watching telenovelas, though.
[OOC] Ayin hehehs!
Gray has disconnected.
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OOC: 2005.07.29
Rio - Southern Downtown
Southern downtown Rio is a busy place indeed. Full of expensive restaurants of countless cuisines and styles of cooking, with a multitude of parks and zoos, this is primarily a tourist trap sort of place for those who come to Rio on vacation. Nearby the coast and the beach, it's one of the busiest places in all of Rio, the neverending flood of noise and sound from hover cars and pedestrians, their honking and shouting and talking like a long melodical song.
Contents:
South <S>: Teleportation Area--Rio
East <E>: Rio - Southern Beach
North <N>: Rio - Downtown Mall District
West <W>: Rio - Commercial District
[OOC] Ayin figures Ayin picked a hotel semi-near the teleporters, so Gray probably knows which one he's in -- which is good, because I think (unless you don't want to do this :D) Ayin decided to ditch the suit in subspace. (After removing the HDD of course)
[OOC] Gray says, "Sounds good."
[OOC] Gray says, "We can start from there, I suppose?"
[OOC] Ayin says, "Sure!"
[OOC] Ayin says, "So it's probably about 7 PM, Rio-time.. Do you want to pose first, or shall I? ^^"
[OOC] Gray says, "Be my guest."
[OOC] Gray is chowing down on ramen, so.
[OOC] Ayin says, "Mmmm ramen."
Ayin paces in his apartment as the TV spouts ads. He's never been in a situation like this one, not in his whole.. month of being online, and he's quite nervous. He took this room out in his civilian identity's name and face -- deciding he'd rather stop in a place where the designs are generic enough that he can keep watch on points of potential forced-entry and be reasonably accurate -- and escaping without attracting too much notice was taking a while for him to figure out.
He had changed out of the suit and into his armor almost as soon as he had entered the room, and after retrieving the hard drive from the pocket and stowing it in his briefcase, was unsure what to do with it. He didn't really want to just /leave/ it here, someone would pick it up and ask questions..
Eventually, he stops pacing and looks around the room, hoping for some answer to jump out at him.. when his eyes land on the closet, and he hears the TV (set to a program about scam products) blab about a portable closet that claimed to store all your clothes in subspace, regardless of how much room it took! Of course, it'd never work, since the stuff would just get /lost/, but.. --Hey, it works if you're /trying/ to get rid of something! Ayin smiles and wonders amusedly how many criminals had thought of using the closets in this way, as he activates his subspace portal and stuffs the suit through it. Immediately, the signal dies out.
By comparison, Gray is the experienced hunter, the cat on the prowl. He has by now changed into his unmarked stealth blacks, and followed Ayin every step of the way, hiding in the shadows behind him.
The trail has led him this far, ending in this hotel in Rio. Gray took up a roost nearby, watching his mark carefully while he plotted the best way to take him down. No matter what happens, he will move fast -- he will move now.
The assassin slinks through the hotel, co-opting a bellhop's uniform. He dons that instead and, most curiously, puts on his horned demon mask, over which he places the traditional hat.
Thus attired, he goes up to Ayin's room, carrying a tray of food, and rings the doorbell. The signal's gone by then, and Gray curses his own hesitance.
Ayin freezes when he hears footsteps approach the door followed by knocking. For a moment he has no clue what to do; them he remembers he didn't ask for anything from the desk, and he's certainly not expecting anyone.. except for whoever tagged him with that device. So, he thinks, 'They' are coming to call?
Moving as soundlessly and smoothly as he can, he moves over to the bed to pick up the suitcase and pads over to the window-door, which opens to a small balcony, and pulls it open. The door complies, with a complimentary screech characteristic of unoiled grooves.
"OW.. /Dammit/."
"Room Service Demon!" the 'bellhop' cries, jerking open the door with brute force when Ayin doesn't do it himself. He drops the tray almost immediately, not at all caring about the contents, which splatter on the floor. He spots Ayin trying to make a break for it and immediately rushes after him. Ayin's pause allows him the time he needs to draw a knife and throw it, hoping to at least delay Ayin so that Gray can catch him for real.
Gray misses you with his Generic Melee attack.
Ayin stares at the masked man in a bellhop uniform for a small fraction of a second before turning and dashing through the balcony door, sidestepping to the side of the doorway that is now double-layered with glass.. and hearing the knife fly past before he sees it. He goes to the railing looking for the simplest way down.. He /could/ jump, but he'd probably land on someone -- his room is overlooking a street -- and besides, excessive shocks are bad for the contents of his suitcase.. He swiftly locates an outcropping from the wall, probably a fake archway over the hotel's street entrance, and jumps for it, intending to land first on that and then drop to the street.
Missed! The assassin mutters quietly and gives chase, losing the bellboy hat almost immediately. He notes Ayin's escape route and attempts to follow it while anticipating the Shadow Hunter's next move. He makes sure of his handhold and then flings another knife, aiming for a hand. Drop. Drop.
Gray strikes you with a glancing hit from his Generic Melee attack for 4 units of damage.
Ayin had just landed safely, holding his case high, when another knife comes at him. Like the first one, he hears it coming, but unlike the first one he isn't already moving away from where it's aimed, and it scrapes the back of his raised hand and cuts into the bracer before lodging there. He's surprised into freezing again, and the case slips from his grasp, motivating him to move swiftly to grab at the case's handle with his left hand, and when that attempt fails, he ends up holding it by pressing his hands against the sides. He adjusts it so he has it pressed against his chest, pulls the knife out with a muttered "ow.." and tosses it aside, and runs through the crowds as quickly as possible (not very fast, really) toward the teleporters.
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