2023-03-22 Degausser (PrP)

Degausser

Participants: Simon Enzo Francesca Sydney Savannah Karl Elyse

Storyteller: Elyse

Location: Bradbury Building, Civic District

Date and Time: March 22, 2023 11:45 pm

Summary: Learning about some documentation that could be used to link financials between Atlas International, a subsidiary of Endron Energy, and the collection of medical-based corporations implicated in the High Hopes Needle Exchange out of Skid Row, the Revenant pack mounts a run on the building to acquire the data.

In the Civic District, there's a large glass and steel building with art nouveau aesthetics near the ground floor. The building stretches up at least thirty stories and has some lighting on the rooftop that sends striations of illuminated concrete inching toward the ground. Gargoyles of various sizes and shapes leer menacingly from the top of the building: a cathedral to bureaucracy in the heart of the bureaucratic nerve center of Los Angeles.

To those Garou who are sensitive to such things, the Weaver's influence has heavily taken hold here. The Gauntlet feels thick, opaque, an unbroken mirror that has lost its silver backing, reflecting nothing but the blank slate of the material realm, the near-corpse of the god of the Garou and their kin.

On the twenty-fifth floor of this building is a nondescript business that sells nondescript services to other nondescript businesses throughout the region. The information that it produces is anything but -- it creates lists of financial records and service addresses of individuals who are supposed linked to subsidiaries of that modern enemy of Gaia: Pentex. It is rumored that some of the Endron data that the Sept has its hands on has passed through this place at least once. Likely some of the data linked to the High Hopes facility is in here. Likely other companies such as O'Tolley's, Black Dog, Atlas International -- a subsidiary of Endron -- are in this place as well.

The Revenants will find out if this is true -- or die in the process.

Simon has been silent on the way to the building. He got a large enough van for them by passing a couple thousands off to an old Child of Gaia kinfolk who got the VW Kombi from an old Glass Walker kin in the 70s or so.

Which is to say, the trip isn't terribly comfortable, but they're parked at a nice distance from their target, in a vehicle that cannot be traced back to them if they can help it.

Before they all step out, the alpha of the Revenants says: "Sydney, tonight is our first run together, so I'm glad you're with us. Welcome aboard." Simon regards the woman seriously as he says this, and then says to Karl and Savannah, "Anna will be in the van, dealing with things remotely as possible. Karl, you're carrying the equipment and hooking her up with the interfaces as necessary in addition to your natural other skills."

As he loads the last bullet in the fourth mag of his Five-SeveN, he also tells Enzo: "I am designating myself the pointman and you will be commander for this mission, and your orders must be followed by all. We'll try not to shift to our war forms until things get too crazy. Both to protect ourselves and to protect her from one of us going crazy," he upnods to the Black Fury. A faint smile, and he slings his SMG across his shoulders.

"Let's steal some documents." He places some earbuds into his ear. It's not that hard to buy this kind of communications device.

"Frankie, you'll have to do your magic more than once today. If we meet any resistance: kill them. Take no hostages, leave no witnesses."

Anna is crammed into the van with the others. She brought a laptop, a smart phone and two high tech drones with her. In addition the girl has her brace on and has a fold up walker jammed into the van as well. She is dressed in simple and non-descript clothing chosen not to stand out that consists an olive green v neck baby t-shirt and a pair of black linen shorts. Although her brace, Anna always sort of stands out. Her abundant dark lock is gathered into braids. She looks to Simon, when he speaks nodding in his direction even as she powers up her two drones. Her lap is on her lap and already running. Her phone is close by too.

Syd listens as the breakdown is given, dressed appropriately in all black, the outline of her shirt distorted by the vest underneath. There's a small shake of her head, "Don't hold back on my account. If I have to I can bail, you guys doing what you need to for surviving is more important." She grips the collar of her shirt, what looks a little too baggy for just a turtleneck and slides it up over the lower half of her face. A baseball cap on top of her head and she's ready to go with the borrowed gun.

Keen to the thick feeling in the gauntlet around this building, Karl looks as if he's feeling a bit under the weather. He doesn't like it, lips curled up a bit, eyes squinted some in displeasure. It's uncomfortable to him, but he's here with his pack on a mission. He can handle it. The theurge surreptitiously checks his weapon, some sort of nine millimeter tucked into his waistband. Yup, it's there. As Simon speaks, he nods along with the word. Karl looks far more focused than normal, which can only be a good thing. He's got a backpack on, full of the stuff Savannah needs to remote in and steal some documents. Another nod indicates he's ready to roll.

Francesca is not dressed like a spy, or, even in her usual black, high end clothing. Instead, she's in a red and black dress with a floral motif, the sort of outfit that's meant to be accidentally distracting, rather than full on hootchie. The aim is to look like a younger assistant or secretary, who might go unnoticed if she's caught in these halls. "Okay," she agrees with Simon, then reaches into her purse (a smaller, inexpensive one, this time, rather than her oversized bag that carries everything from lunch to her Dyson air wrap) for a compact mirror, checking her reflection one last time.

Enzo is all cleaned up thanks to Francesca. He's dressed like a facilities type person for the building in a polo, wind breaker, khaki pants and comfortable work shoes. The windbreaker lets him hide his fetish blade on his person without looking too suspicious. "I think you should take point Simon. "This is a glasswalker op if ever we seen one. I'll just back up for any violence needed."

Sydney watches the building as they get near, scrunched down to watch through the little windows at the back of the van. Her finger lifts, tapping against the glass in a sharp tick. "There. The metal pannels on the ground behind the building. Looks like it might be a service entrance, maybe stairs or an elevator down to a sub basement for receiving."

There are a couple janitorial service workers entering through the front doors. One of them is wheeling a little cart. A building facilities van is parked nearby. The guards at the door are scanning and checking the facilities workers, placing them out of view of the alleyway that leads to the service entrance that Sydney discovered.

As the group comes upon it, Sydney was spot on: a set of steel doors are set into the ground to act as a little bridge over an empty space over stairs. The stairs lead down into the sub-basement of the building. The lighting down here is abysmal. It likely hasn't been serviced in a dog's age. From what people can see, the sub-basement is a collection of little corridors that lead to what appear to be furnaces or boilers set into pillars that support the basement above. There is a soft dinging sound somewhere in the distance. The liminality of this space makes it hard to tell the direction of sounds; it is empty enough to echo, but enough scattered debris is on the floor to make it difficult to walk silently.

Anna will follow any orders given to her by the wolves, but especially any given by Karl who the tiny tinker might e with? She unless told otherwise will flyout her drones to keep watch around the building.

Not a natural sneaker, Karl continues focusing much hard than he usually does. It's mentally exhausting. But he watches his steps, keeping toward the back middle of the group. It's clear he's not really accustomed to being expected to sneak around buildings potentially full of Pentex people. Still, he keeps up and keeps quiet.

Francesca manages to pick her way across the floor without making a ton of noise, her nose wrinkling as she does, watching where she puts her feet. Glancing over her shoulder, she looks about, and to the others, gaze searching for access into the building, head canting to the left as she tries to orient herself. If she can, she'll move toward the dinging sound.

Anna has one drone follow the group and one drone stay outside of the building, making patrol rounds to keep watch. She is in the van herself and ducked out of view. She sends off a quick message to Karl with a secure firewalled up phone connection. TXT Karl: 30 yr Cam by elev ahead.

Enzo is dressed in less than a standard monkey suit that wage workers have to wear. But for him its still much different than his normal wear. Still, he's light enough on his feet to pick his way through the various debris to follow along with the group, eyes alert and ears trained for any danger.

Sydney is bringing up the rear, covering behind them with the borrowed shotgun. She lingers a little bit behind, making it easier for her to duck out of sight should they come across someone that might object to the woman packing the drum fed weapon. Her steps are quiet, as is she, doing her best impression of not being there.

One has to be careful with these things and Simon takes special care not to trip around the debris. Their entry point could be their exit point if no one knows how they got here. He grips the handle of his SMG as he surveys the area, relying on his packmates' senses just as well as he does his own.

The empty sub-basement remains empty, for the most part. There's a strange feeling in the sub-basement, especially as one passes the little pillars that contain the boilers or furnaces. Something about those feels off to the Garou. Nothing immediately jumps out at them. They come closer to the dinging sound and, as Savannah texted to Karl, there is a motion-tracking camera by the elevator. It is currently set to track in a 90 degree angle above the elevator doors to catch any would-be thieves. The dinging sound is the service elevator currently in use. Must be those janitorial workers making their way to wherever it is they plan to clean.

Karl receives some communication and pauses, "Hold up." he murmurs softly, just loudly enough to be heard. "Camera up ahead by the elevator. Pretty good coverage." he doesn't mention the dinging. That's pretty self-evident. It's an elevator. He's passed along the appropriate information and leaves the decision making up to the op leader. The furnaces draw his attention. They make him frown as he squints over at one of them, even more displeased than he was when he felt the gauntlet start to solidify, more or less.

Francesca considers the furnaces, wrinkling up her nose, although she's doing her best to settle into the roll of a confused assistant, never knowing what might lurk around the corner or pop out of the elevator doors. When Karl points to the camera, she nods, then slows - she, too, looks to the Ahrouns, right brow quirking up, quizzical - a silent indication that she's holding her position until they say go. She's probably bracing herself, with the expectation that Simon is going to shoot the camera.

All but Simon are able to peer through the Gauntlet. The Weaver's webs are thick here. It feels like spiderwebs on the eyes, or cellophane clinging to the skin, cutting off the air to the human as the spirit attempts to burst out and peek through. Suddenly the feeling releases and the sensation of cool air breezes across the Garou faces. While this place is heavily encrusted with Weaver's webs, there are great wefts and wounds in the Pattern with no spiders coming to clean it. It feels as desolate and devoid of life in the Umbra as it does in the real world.

With the exception of those furnaces. Near the furnace closest to the elevator is a shade of something, a bleak slip of a creature that looks chained to the device. The furnace takes on the cast of a maw. Upon looking closer, the furnaces are not built into pillars but rotten tree trunks. Around the group are those same rotten trees, as if they had stepped through into a venomous woodland. It looks like their ankles are soaked in water and mandrake roots sway and float in the umbral swamp.

What *was* this place?

The shade chained to the gaping, flaming maw writhes and screams across the Gauntlet. It tries to attract the attention of the Garou. Something from the Dark Umbra?

Enzo figures they don't need to pretend they're blending in anymore or ever, so he draws out his fetish blade and holds it in his right hand at the ready. Looking to the others he takes a long moment of study across the gauntlet, whistling softly and shaking his head. Nodding as its time to head on he holds when Karl speaks.

Sydney stops as the mention of the camera goes out, remaining where she is near the wall. She waits quietly for the next order, watching back down the hall they came through.

Simon leans against the wall, gets himself in a nice angle to do a trick that other Glass Walkers will recognize. It's a single shot from his SMG, aimed to ricochet on the wall with a funny-sounding noise and it manages to completely disable the camera, severing the connection of the camera to the rest of the system. "Go. If anyone shows up in the elevator, be prepared to kill them all."

Anna sends a quick text to Karl. TEXT Karl: Security Team out front being called in suddenly.

The elevator doors remain closed. No one seems to be coming. At least, not yet.

Then the sound of the beeping starts again. The elevator is descending. It goes past the fifth floor, the fourth, the third. Each floor takes roughly ten seconds to pass. Lights shine out from the cracks in the elevator doors and then the doors open.

A smoke grenade is immediately thrown out.

Enzo grins as the elevator dings and the door opens. When the smoke grenade rolls out he rushes forward and shanks the guard coming out hard, right in the guts. The sound of the blade sinking through the uniform and into flesh is drowned out by the thump of his hand hitting the body of the guard. It's a hard stab, angled for more damage. With a rough grunt the blade is pulled free and he ducks aside for the follow on attacks of the others.

Sydney watches the elevator doors open and expel the smoke grenade, pivoting to bring the shotgun to bear. When the first figure darts out she pulls the trigger, and a pop that doesn't sound anything at all like a shotgun going off is heard. It leaves her with a jammed weapon as the Fury kin bursts out, not with bullets, but with several examples of strong, anatomically impossible, words.

Prepared to hop on the elevator and ride it on up to get some data, Francesca seems...vaguely amused? when the smoke grenade comes out. If she could /see/ Simon, she'd look to him, expecting him to shoot at it too. With all the gunfire and smoke, she wills her body to prepare for fisticuffs instead - her slender, pilates-strong arms suddenly become thicker, the musculature in them becoming thick and sinewy. Hair springs forth, black, curly, the same color as the perfectly blown out locks on her head. But perhaps the most menacing part of all are those hands, which grow and sprout forth wicked, gnarly claws - the better to rip your eyes out with, my dears!

Simon steps into the column of smoke, aware that it's going to be a pretty hard time to shoot anything, but still, he sprays the bullets and the bullets seem to be homing on a single guy. The mag is empty, as evidenced by the click it makes when he presses the trigger another time, but a few of the bullets have made it to their targets. Unfortunately, he did forget he is able to shoot the god damn smoke grenade.

Look. Karl is no ahroun. He's a decent shot at a shooting range. But Simon said to kill anything that came off the elevator. And so gun drawn, Karl starts blasting. He misses, which is annoying enough. But he hits Enzo, which is even worse. It doesn't look bad from a quick glance, so he doesn't worry about it. Sometimes your packmates get fucking shot in the back when you're fighting security personnel in an office building basement. It's cool.

One of the guards gets hit with a couple bullets in the elevator, but he responds with a scream and, anyway, he just starts blasting. He stands up to his feet and fires a bullet into Simon, which is neatly absorbed by his Garou flesh. The other tries to fire but his gun jams. He throws it down and takes a shock baton out of a little holster at his side.

Meanwhile, the other guard stands there staring at his entrails that have begin to spill into his hands from the wound that Enzo gave him.

Seeing as guard two is foolish enough to aim a gun toward her and Enzo, Francesca moves in, through the smoke, towards guard #2. With "Rar!" that really does sound like a human yelling 'Rar!' rather than a wolf growling the way it would if she'd shifted entirely, she slashes those wicked claws across the guard's face and throat, nearly taking off his head. It's a brutal, efficient attack, the sort of fighter who fights only when absolutely pressed.

"Oh shit!" Enzo looks down and at the bullet hole in the windbreaker he wears with the blood from the graze shot Karl hit him with. "Maaaaaan, I was going to take this outfit back to the store!" Clearly ignoring the blood from when he stabbed the first guard he focuses back on task and rushes into the elevator to help his pack. Seeing Simon armed with his gun, he lifts his blooded blade and follows Francesca's attack.

The attack starts with a body slam against the wall of the elevator and then a flurry of cuts and stabs work over the guard. It's fast, brutal and bloody and ends with the Bone Gnawer hacking the head from the body.

Sydney works feverishly to clear the jam in the shotgun, getting it sorted and up for another shot rather quickly. It doesn't jam this time, but that section of wall never saw it coming.

Having taken a shot to the center mass which -- just somehow seemed to linger there, to be picked off like someone dropped food on him, Simon snarls at the incoming enemy and bears his gun to bear. He fires two shots at the guard's head, which... while it doesn't kill the man, it sure as hell looks a lot like someone did a lobotomy on him. Now there's blood on his shoes. How regrettable.

The final guard remaining aims his gun at Sydney and pulls the trigger. The movement of his arm causes the wound in his side to stitch up slightly and he wriggles away, a rope of his intestines falling to the floor. He nearly trips on it. Blood and whatever bilious fluids are starting to collect around the wound, and whatever semi-digested food in the part of his guts severed by Enzo's knife are curdling at the sudden exposure to the stomach acid leaking from the brutal knife wound. It's unlikely he will live past this point, but he's trying to make his last moments count.

Undeterred by his friendly fire incident, Karl takes aim again and fires. He hits the only guard that is mostly in one piece, killing him. He manages not to fist pump or yell or anything. He didn't pull the weight in the fight, but he did his part! Shooting a mostly dead dude! The three are done, but he holds onto the gun, turning about to check behind the group just in case. Seems like someone should do that.

"Karl, make sure they don't disable this fucking elevator on us," Simon says once business is done as usual. "Just-- see what you can do to keep it going up to the floor we need to go. Everyone else, reload, get ready." He checks Sydney and Enzo out for any wounds, and finding none, he slings his SMG and switches to his pistol. Much better, much more comfortable. "Syd," he asks the Fury, "See any other passageways we can take?" Because maybe there's a hatch, somewhere. Something. Anything.

Sydney appears to be fine other than grumbling at the gun, because yes, it's the guns fault. She looks up at Simon and nods, starting to move around the room to check things out, looking for the requested way towards the upper floors. She steps into the elevator, over the bits and bobs of the guards to inspect the ceiling. Reaching up she pushes on one of the light panels and slides it aside, motioning. "Maintenence hatch, ladder all the way up. Going to be slow going, but nobody's going to be watching."

Anna has a drone fly up through the elevator shaft to check things out or tries to anyways.

Francesca's hands return to normal, and she bends down, carefully tugging a radio free from a guard. Gingerly, she touches a button, then does her best impression of Simon. "They're on the move, due - " and she announces whatever direction is outside and not the van, taking cues from the others if offered. "We'll chase, be ready to cut them off. OVER." And then she tucks the radio into her purse.

Due to her drone being there, Anna realizes that Karl has parted from the group. So she texts Francesca instead this time. Well her drone was there anyways, it flew up through the elevator shaft. TEXT Francesca: Clear, landings q 5 fl, can break on.

Enzo makes sure to clean off his blade on one of the downed guards. Slipping it away, he starts to check their pockets, looking for cash and security keys/cards or anything else that could be useful. Collecting one of the shock batons he nods in approval, swinging it around and then looking to the others, following where they lead.

"Then that's the way to go." Simon considers the others, then nods. "We could do this climb for a couple of floors and then find a stairwell, might be an easier way to get to where we want. Buy us a little time that way." Francesca does her imitation of him and he just... scratches his head with his free hand. Since the other one is carrying a pistol, now. "If intel checks out." While he's at it, he's going to be rifling through the comatose guy's belongings, too. Wallet, badge, keycards, key. The other guys won't have time to disable those yet.

And since it is doubtful that Karl dedicated the bag of goodies, he also takes that up. They'll need it.

The group of guys are carrying pistols, keycards that seem like they'll work for multiple floors, and some wallets. The wallets have identification cards, driver's licenses, pictures of friends and family, credit cards, one of them has a library card. Another has a Starbucks punch card. Just normal stuff.

Sydney moves to jam up the elevator doors for now, dragging one of the bodies to lay them across the threshold. A little gross maybe, but it does the job. "Do you want me to stay here and guard the way out or bring up the rear?" Glancing to the others.

"I think we're still going to need your eyes on this, so you'll have rear guard duty, Sydney. I'll remain vanguard." However good that does, Simon. Still, the Ahroun looks at Enzo, then at Francesca. "If everyone's ready, we'll ascend a few floors up, access the stairwell and make our way to the twenty-fifth.

Because one cannot rely on emergency shafts for everything, after all. "Let's roll out." And by roll out he means getting up to the ladder they're supposed to get to.

"Anna says - 'Clear, landings at q 5 fl, can break on'" Francesca reads the text aloud, not entirely sure what it means, but assuming that the more tactical others, do. She glances up the shaft, then at the body Sydney uses to jam the doors. The new moon swallows, hard, then closes her eyes and steels herself to face the rest of the evening.

"We got keys, key cards, some gum... Oooh Starbucks!" Collecting a gun and reloading it, its handed off to Francesca along with some of the additional clips for use. Looking over the rest of their gains he nods to Simon, "I'm ready."

Up the maintenance ladder and across to the landing. The door opens to a stairwell. A silent alarm is running in the building, showing a yellow light. There is a red light next to the yellow, but has not been engaged. The group is able to make their way up the stairwell. By the fourteenth floor, one of Savannah's drones sights a security team moving towards the stairwell through one of the exterior windows. The team is able to get into hiding before they come through, charging down towards the basement. They can make their way up further.

Finally reaching floor 25, the group fans out into a blank hallway with no art on the walls. Doors appear on each side of the hallway of this long corridor. Time to look for AlternID Records Limited.

"Stick together, left is never wrong," Simon opts to search the left-hand side with the group as a whole rather than split. Since splitting the group often leads to catastrophe, anyway. Before he does, however, he unzips the backpack and plugs in a router.

The Fury kinfolk nods and falls into line, sliding back into her spot at the rear as they start heading up, and up. Everybody is getting their steps in today by the time they get to their floor.

Francesca climbs, slow, steady, in shoes that aren't great for climbing, but she's worn worse. The gun that Enzo gives her is stashed down the front of her dress, to free up her hands. She checks her phone, for any updates from Anna, then nods to Simon.

Simon can't see shit, which, isn't really surprising. That's bound to bite him in the ass later. For now, he'll follow where the others lead.

As they move, Francesca pauses by a door, gesturing to the others - there's blue light shining from beneath it, making the room beyond the door a likely candidate for holding computers. But, then, she pauses, listening, sniffing the air, closing her eyes to devote her concentration to identifying the scent she catches. When she does, a horrified, visceral shudder races through her body, as she looks for a brief moment like she might vomit. Drawing the gun, she lifts her chin, nodding to the door, and mouths: "Wyrm" at the group.

Anna will still ducked int the van and still trying to hide shoots off another text to Francesa as she monitors the information being sent to her laptop from the drones. TEXT Francesca: Security leaving suddenly. Seems sus.

The security vans pull out and begin to head away from the building. As they do this, headlights flash into the van where Savannah is, but no one seems to notice the little Kinfolk huddling in the darkness. Probably for the best, given that each of those vehicles had at least four guys in them.

Sydney stops when something catches Francesca's attention, glancing to her to see what's up. There's a frown at what she mouths, a nod and her hands tighten on the shotgun.

Only one way in. Simon looks at the group, looks at the door. 'I'll go', he murmurs, almost inaudibly, as he gets ready to breach and possibly face whatever lies beyond. "We'll get Savannah into those computers. On three..."

Anna stays hunkered down and sucks in a soft nervous breath. She is relieved when the security team doesn't come check out the van.

"Savannah says security's leaving the building - not sure if that was me or something else," Francesca warns, drawing the gun that Enzo gave her, clicking off the safety with her thumb. A nod to Simon, Sydney, and then a quick wink: "Dai, vieni." Come on. Let's go.

What lies beyond is an amalgamated mass of flesh and limbs. Where once it might have been human, it has been heavily modified by whatever Bane has infested its corpus. The skin has split open and its hands have been degloved to show skeletal spiked claws. Its mouth seems inverted on its face, the nose gone. When it breathes, a vertical slit reminiscent of vaginal lips parts and shudders. Black phlegm falls out of the mouth. Its eyes are baleful and yellow, glowing with a foul intent.

The smell this thing gives off is intense, the umami scent of rot and brightly sour scent of curdled cream. It is nude, but its lower appendage, if indeed it had such a thing, has been removed. Its legs are bound in what appears to be electrified wire that twines its way up its lower body and enters into the guts.

Seeing the door open and the two Garou and Kinfolk enter, it throws its bonespur hands in the air and its mouth parts from side to side in a deafening roar. It begins to charge.

Beyond the massive and hideous fomor are computers against the wall. While they are largely out of the center of the room, they could still be damaged by stray shots. The rest of the office room has been left vacant, although there is a headless corpse that has been partially eaten lying in a pool of yellow ichor melding with blood.

Anna looks at her camera and tries not to freak up, she also stays ducked down!

tossing the backpack aside for Sydney, or Frankie, or whomever, Simon throws his SMG away before he bounds towards the charging creature, his clothes ripping off as bone and muscle shift in a horrific fashion to turn him into a hulking aggressive war beast with black fur, matted in grey highlights. His claws swipe at the monster, ineffectively, but still, he is a being of murderous fury and hatred now.

At the sight of the fomor, in all of its nasty, terrible, awful, just /ugh/-ness, the more human parts of Francesca fall away - her attunement to her fancy clothes, her eyerolls about things being gross. All there is now is fight - and Wyrm to destroy. The change comes upon her rapidly, black-fur covered muscle expanding, her red floral patterned dress becoming ribbons of fabric that flutter away from her, almost gracefully, to the office floor, along with the gun in her hand, which clatters down. This roar is no indignant human sounding 'rar', but instead a cry of anger, disgust, at the injustice and foul offense that the fomori before them represents.

As Simon engages the fomor, head on, Frankie lets out another snarl, then SNAP-SNAPs against where it's wide open, tearing out two large chunks of fomor, which go flying across the office.

Francesca is too stylish for dedicated clothing, although she might have a set of underthings for outings like this, it's true! The large, black, crinos creature is all-in on this all you can eat fomori buffet, chowing down in a way that's going to give her homid form weird, buffet like dreams for weeks to come. She knows the clock is running, that Savannah might be caught, and that the party is split, so it's time to DINE. Two more rough bites render fomor 'flesh' from bone, and, with a flourish, she spits it out, big, yellow eyes looking over to her cousin like 'is it dead?'

The creature has been rendered asunder by the jaws of Frankie, allowing it to fall like so much meat upon the carpet. The clock is running, Savannah is waiting in her car. The security teams are starting to come back. Find that computer!

Simon spends a good long while in his war form. He cannot leave it yet, but Francesca can tell that he is bleeding, the blood matting into his fur along with the black gunk of the Fomor. He shivers, as if in deep pain. For now, he remains exactly where he is, eyes unfocused, while he tries his best not to hurt his comrades. It will be just a bit more.

Sydney stands there with the shotgun pointed at the mangled mass of Fomor now that Francesca has made rather savage work of it. Her breathing elevated, eyes focused on the body as she keeps it covered, clearly expecting it to twitch in some capacity. It takes her a second to move again, and then she's back over towards the door, resting a shoulder against the wall so she can eyeball it and the hallway at relatively the same time.

The wolf leaves Frankie, the creature fading back into the human form the majority of them are more familiar with. Her dress wasn't dedicated, but some sensible - and not that scandalous - underthings were. "Computer stuff, let's go," she whispers once her ability to speak returns, and she keeps a close eye on Simon. If he's unable to help, she'll do her best to get the router and make it happen.

Once the effect of his rage elapses, Simon's real wound appears across the side of his face. It's a slashing wound that appears ugly. He did spend time to at least dedicate his pants -- and his pistol. His blood is dying, and he's making his way to the computers.

Syd glances over, watching Simon head over to get what they came for. Her eyes focus on the wounds he's sporting with a small frown before she nods to the body of the thing. "What do we do about that?" Leaning enough to check the hallway to see if its clear.

While waiting, Francesca does her best to survey the room, doing her best to take at least mental pictures. She gathers up her shredded clothing, shoes, and even her poor, now strap broken purse, shoving the shreds inside and tying the thing around her waist like....a fanny pack. She tucks the gun into her bra, then stays close to Simon, eyeing him and the wound.

Anna gets a excited when she gets the hook-up and is able to work on getting the data out. This is her time to shine! The small tinker hopes anyways. She focuses intently and tries her very very best not wanting to mess this up. She is zeroed in n her laptop right now and with her hacking away at it, the data starts to download. She seems relieve and happy about this when it is working.

"There's nothing we can do about it; Karl might be able to, depending. Some Rite or another," Simon tells Sydney, "we'll see when he gets around here." He hooks the device up for Savannah, waits for her to give them the all clear. Blood clouds his sight a little but he manages to handle things well enough.

All told, he looks exhausted. Like he could use a nap, or several. But at least they reached their objectives; or something close to it.

Their extraction route can't be the same. So once he coordinates Syd and Enzo -- and he seems truly out of sorts to devise any plan -- to retrace their footsteps. Enzo still has a security keycard to get them down to a garage floor. Plus, Savannah has access to the networks, now. She can easily do some lateral movement, get the security servers, crash them, and that buys them time to waltz out in the sea of corporate vehicles that no doubt exists.

Out into the street and the night. Rain has started over Los Angeles, and the gleam of the streetlights and the blacktop shines as the Garou and Kin step out of the garage entrance. Security seems not to notice them, or if they do they pay the group no heed. The splash of water mimics the splash of blood from the fomor they destroyed. Even if it came to blows, it was a clean operation: everyone got in, got a chance to do what they do best -- and even shine in a way they may not have before -- and got out alive.

The moon is invisible above the cloud cover, but the Garou feel the weak pull of the crescent moon. A sea of spilling flashing lights are dumped throughout the plaza, illuminating the group as they make their way to the van, start it up, and drive off with nonchalance.