DATE: Thursday, July 16, 1998 Place: Silverton Apartments, #101 ---- Recall start ---- Salem takes the cigarette out of his mouth. "Evening, Malone." The Ronin's manner is deceptively casual. The room reeks of cigarette smoke despite the filtered air being blown in by the air conditioner. He grunts once, a combination of distracted irritability and greeting, then begins heading back into the living room, making the gun stuck in the waistband of his jeans visible. "So, anything out of the ordinary happen to you today? Weird phone calls, stranger packages?" he asks flippantly while turning in place to settle with a plop back into his seat on the sofa, another gun resting on the cushion to his left. Salem takes another drag on the cigarette and then stubs it out in a convenient ashtray. "No," he says, curtly. Dark eyes follow the other Ahroun's progress, steadily. JJ Malone flicks ash into an ashtray on the arm of the couch to his right, then takes in another long drag. "Well, that's a bonus at least. Tell me again what you're impression of things last night was?" Salem folds his arms across his chest, mouth twisting into a slight grimace. "We did well, but we got lucky." There's a short rythmic knock at the door. A short rap is suddenly heard on the apartment door. "I'm coming, I'm coming," J.J. calls out irritably as the second knock sounds, trying to lever himself out of the couch again. He answers it in typical fashion, the gun in his left hand visible behind the edge of the door as he opens it to admit the theurge and philodox. "Come in. If anyone's hungry we can make speghetti or something, but someone else is cooking," he concludes, returning to his seat on the couch. Without his coat on, a second gun is visible from the top of his jeans when his back is turned. "I want to discuss what happened last night and figure out what went wrong." Salem drops his tall, athletic frame into a chair with a grunt and stretches his legs out. His chin jerks in a nod toward the arrivals. Jayson slips into the room, laden with several plastic bags filled with miscellaneous boxes. "I figured that food may be in order, so I took the liberty of picking up dinner on the way. Assuming that Indian cuisine is acceptable to everyone?" He places the bags down on the table and starts to unload the food, as well as several bottles of mineral water that was keeping the food company. "All we need is some utensils and plateware." He looks towards JJ hopefully. JJ Malone points in the vague area of where the plates and utensils are located in the appropriate cupboard and drawer. "Indian's fine," J.J. says without much enthusiasm, more distracted. "I hope you got vindaloo?" Jeff slips in and closes the door. "Good evening, gents," he greets them and moves to a seat without another word. Jayson heads into the kitchen and rummages around, eventually producing all the equiptment needed for each of those present, as well as a couple of extra settings, in case more people arrive. "Vindaloo, Korma, Jasmine Rice, a potato dish who's name eludes me, and several types of bread. I passed on the chutney this evening." JJ Malone grunts. "Passable. I'd really kill for a good Ethiopian place around, though," he comments, waiting for the others to serve themselves before getting up, instead finishing off his cigarette. "How's progress going on the data you got?" Salem mutters something under his breath as he gets up to help himself to a plateful of ethnic food. A big plateful. The Ronin's mood is tense despite the waning moon. Jayson has finshies spooning food from the various boxes onto his plate, grabes a mineral water, then picks a spot on the floor, leaning up against one of the walls. "Slowly. When the power died, a lot of the data was corrupted, or only partially downloaded. I'm doing my best to repair as much of it as possible, bit by bit." Instead of a plateful, Jeff gets a dieter's share or perhaps better described as a sampler plate. He remains quietly attentive to the speaker. Salem settles back into his chosen seat and stabs at the food with his fork, listening intently. JJ Malone growls softly, finally hoisting himself out of the couch again. "I realize it can be time consuming, but if you can speed it up..." he trails off impatiently. "What I'm really worried about is what went wrong, now that we're no longer being chased and had some time to think about it. I'd like to get your and Salem's perceptions of what happened. Maybe you'll remember something now you forgot last night." Jayson starts to reply to the Walker elder, then judges his mood and thinks better of it. "I'll try to make it as quick as possible, while keeping the information intact. As for what went wrong, it's anybody's guess. Maybe Turner had some security measures in place we didn't pick up on, maybe word got back somehow that we were interested in the company, maybe they realized that the driver we replaced was wrong but waited until we were in so that they knew what we were looking for." He tears off a small piece of bread and uses it to clean up some sauce that had found it's way onto the plate's rim, then pops the bread into his mouth. Jeff pokes and moves the food around on his plate, not really interested in eating at the moment. He just watches quietly, not offering comment just yet. JJ Malone's plate is loaded somewhere between Jeff and Jayson's in quantity. Rather than return to the couch, he takes a seat at the 'dining room' table with one of the bottles of mineral water. "How likely is it you might've tripped some internal alarms when you did your search?" Jayson shrugs slightly. "I'm pretty good at what I do, but by no means am I infallable. It's possible they had some hidden traps that i either didn't, or couldn't, detect. Hell, there as certain Walker computers out there that will send a spirit out to the user if anyone but he touches the damn thing. I don't know enough about leeches to know what they may be able to do with computers." Salem's face tightens. JJ Malone sighs irritably. "Wish we'd had a chance to get net spiders. What about the little show she put on for you when you did get caught? What are your impressions of that?" JJ Malone seems to be including both Garou who went in on that, not just Jayson. Salem snorts. "Fucking theatrics." Jayson doesn't seem to take offense at the Elder's questions,and if the possibility of his actions being responsible for alerting the enemy to thier presence bothers him, he does a very good job at hiding it behind an aura of indifference. "I didn't really get anything of note about her at all. " Jeff, having nothing to add, continues to nibble at his food. JJ Malone perserveres stubbornly. "Can you remember exactly what she said?" Salem stabs at his food some more. "Theatrics," he repeats sourly. "Racial insults -- she knew what we were -- and B-movie posturing. Fucking lick is probably insane." Jeff scowls a moment. "She knows who we are. That's not a good thing." Jayson stops eating for a few minutes and closes his eyes in thought, then suddenly they snap back open. "I can't remember exactly what she said, but there were a couple of things that did strike me as a little strange. She said something about us having _always_ been a problem to her. That struck me as a little strange. The other thing, and I can't remember why exactly, but I'm pretty sure she let us go. Which means she either doesn't care about the information we did get, or that she's been playing us all along." He resumes eating, finsihing off the remnants on his plate. JJ Malone tilts his head to consider Jeff's comment, expression turning glacial at Jayson's conclusions, obviously not liking any of it. "First off, how did she know what we were?" he asks, and by the tone of it he's throwing the question out to the floor for discussion. Salem looks up, sharply. "Sometimes they can tell by looking at you," he points out. Jeff looks to Jayson, idly musing, "Or maybe she wants us to have the information. You know, it is possible this is a setup. Especially if she knew who and what we were." Jayson nods with Salem. "Or, it lends credence that she may have some influence on the Garou in Seattle. Maybe someone we contacted tipped her off, or tipped someone who tipped her off." He puts the plate down onto the floor and takes a swig of his water. "Exactly", he says to Jeff, "she could have been playing us all along." JJ Malone scowls darkly. "I've already considered the possibility that someone in Seattle may have been in collusion with her. But there's one thing that isn't explained. I told them we'd be up there Sunday, not last night, and yet she still apparently knew we were coming. And knew what we were. How? Was she in the room?" she asks Salem, apparently in response to his knowledgeable comment. "Can she tell through a video screen?" Salem sets his plate aside and shakes his head. "I don't know," he answers flatly. "It's possible. It's even more possible she could have been there unseen, following us, for at least part of the mission." Jayson says "All important questions, but I don't think we'll be able to answer any of them, at least not yet. You know, sometimes, when things are wrong with spirits or there was a big battle pending, or some major threat to the Sept, I would dream about it. Sometimes I didn't know until after what those dreams meant, other times it was clear as a bell. Maybe she dreamed we were coming. Or read it in a crystal ball, or whatever it is that vampires due in order to see the unseen." Jeff slides his plate away from him and shrugs. "Perhaps. We have a lot of maybe's and I don't know's that we need to clear up. We should probably drop down what we -do- know and make sense of that instead of speculating about what we don't." JJ Malone scowls. "I hate not knowing," J.J. comments darkly, but then drops that line of thought for now. "The next question is, then, why would she want us to have the information? If it's a setup, setup for what? What does she get out of it?"