Some research online reveals that Dunkelzhan's will includes a grant to any group demonstrating communications between humans and elephants, dolphins, or satyrs. Saeder-Krup game Transcendent Technologies a grant to pursue this. This would explain the elephant statue.
We prepare. We're to set up around 11:00pm. Bert will collect people, I'll be chilling a few miles away. The actual run starts at 3:00.
At around midnight Bert stops and Jane heads out astrally to monitor the place for a while. Bert will be back in fifteen minutes to pick her up. Jane watches the guards. They check the doors. On the TT floor the push some buttons on the sealed lab door, it beeps, and they continue the rounds. There are four guards, two on cameras, two on patrol, they swap each pass. Each floor takes about ten minutes.
Despite Bert's request that she only take a half hour, she returns an hour and half later.
About 2:15, Jane makes Derek and Bianca invisible. They head in. They try to climb the fence. It takes some time to succeed, but they eventually do. They head up to the building. Bianca launches a grapple up the side of the building. They climb up, it takes a lot of time as they are trying to be quiet. Things are complicated by Derek's lack of skill, eventually Bianca pulls him up. It's about 3:00pm when they reach the top. Bert lets the team know that the patrol is on the second floor at this point.
There is a security camera on top of the entry shack.
Derek attacks the lock with his skill. Meanwhile Bianca, at Derek's suggestion, _slowly_ tilts the camera upward so it can just barely no longer see the door. Derek succeeds at unlocking the door. Bianca is moving the camera when a sudden dog bark causes her to twitch a bit. They head in. The cautiously head through the small maintenance area and to the elevator. The entry to the elevator has another maglock.
Bert warns that the two guards head to the top, maintenance floor unexpectedly. Derek and Bianca hide. The guards climb out of the elevator, unlocks the hatch, and head into the maintenance area. They look around, then head to the roof access. One looks around the roof, but manages to not see the grapple.
While the guards are outside, Derek quickly reassembles the maglock he had partially disassembled. They head back downstairs.
Derek opens the lock, unlocks it, props the hatch open, and reassembles the lock. Derek and Bianca climb down the elevator.
Bert notices that the road team of guards skips the previous building and is heading toward building 4, the building Derek and Bianca are in.
The two guards from the car arrive. They and two other guards head up. Two head to the first floor, two to the second.
Derek opens the elevator doors and they head in. Derek attempts to unlock the maglock on the computer room. After a few minutes he opens the door. Bianca heads in to check out the computers while Derek reassembles the lock.
Meanwhile the guards finish checking the first and second floors and move to the third and fourth.
Bianca finds workstations labeled Cletus, Jonah, Betsy, and Hampshire, but no Betsy. Derek finishes his work and looks for a place to hide, or at least out of the way.
The guards head to the fifth and sixth floors. Derek looks at them, they have heavy pistols, armored vests, and eyes that might be cyber. They head to the edge of the atrium, then turn around. "Did you hear something?" "Hello? Anyone here?"
Having no success, they check the doors in the hallway. All of the mag-locks make happy beeps as they check them. They quietly talk to each other. "Did you hear breathing? I could have sworn I heard breathing." They call for lights to be turned on, illuminating the front of the building and all of the atrium. They look very carefully, then head back to the atrium and look around. No hearing or seeing anything they head back to the elevator and the team heads up. Two check the seventh floor, two check the maintenance area. The atrium lights are turned off. After some checks the entire team heads to the back room on the first floor.
My old friend Lukas calls me. Asks me to call him back. He sounds stressed and angry (but not at me). I'm not sure what to make of it. Very cryptic.
Derek starts looking at the laboratory lock.
Four guards head out of the back area, and two head out to the squad car. The other two guards head to the second floor.
Derek successfully opens the lab door. There are three tables labeled
Solidad, Megan, and Adam. Berta sits in the corner. Bianca attaches the black box. It beeps and something inside starts whirring. Derek hacks on the door.
Meanwhile the guards continue their patrol. They reach the fourth floor. Derek finds that the door has a optical chip to store access information. He uses his pocket secretary and head data-jack to modify the data to remove any reference to himself. Derek shuts the door and the maglock. The guards arrive on the fifth floor. The guard pokes the maglock on the lab door, it makes a happy beep.
After a while the black box stops whirring and very faintly beeps.
They head back to the elevator, Derek opens the door, and they head up.
Bert watches another guard patrol begin their rounds.
They head to the roof. They hope the re-adjusted camera doesn't notice their exiting.
Derek and Bianca climb down Bianca flips the grapple down and catches it. The two head out across the grounds to the fence. They climb over without a problem. They meet back up with Bert.
Bert circles around a bit to avoid being followed. They don't notice anyone. They head to Bert's hideout.
I head off a bit, then call up Wrench. He wants to meet. We arrange to meet at the diner I happen to the chilling in front of. He says he'll be there in twenty. I head in for some coffee.
Bert's hideout in Puyullup, a pretty bad neighborhood. The streets are mostly empty at 5:00 in the morning. The hideout is very minimal, but there is a garage. It has alarms
Wrench shows up in a car. He's wearing dress casual, a blazer and slacks. He has bags under his eyes and doesn't look like he's slept in a while. He's carrying some sort of small concealed weapon. He's left leg looks sore or stiff.
He says an old friend came into town look for help. Tried to get attention off his friends back, but things went badly. People are now looking for Wrench, Wrench has no idea where his friend is. Doesn't have much, but needs protection. He needs a safe place to stay for now.
I call Bert. Bert's willing to put him up for 1 grant, 5 if Bert needs to ditch the safe-house. I agree.
I suggest he ditch his car. We drive to a car lot, he parks the car and puts a for sale sign from his trunk on the windshield. I take him on the back of my bike to Bert's place. I don't see any tails. When we arrive, I ask Jane to check for tails, she doesn't see anything of note. We sleep.