Starting to Regroup {Everyone But Headstone)

[shaidar]

{Revs}

"If we can inhibit his cyberware with drugs we'll have enough people to keep him under control. I'm not sure we can afford to give him much of a cut, but could offer our help in getting him out of whatever is going on. I guess it depends on what's going down in Houston. I don't think Simpleton ever said to not tell Ace what is happening, just to deliver him to the hotel. I'd rather be getting jobs from, or at least be on reasonable terms with, Ace than I would with Simpleton."

[archolewa]

{Baby Blue}

"Yeah. Just thinking, that if we want Ace to listen to us, he's a lot more likely to do so if we didn't just shove him into a van and jack him full of drugs." Baby Blue glances at the others, especially El Cid since he has a history with Ace. "Thoughts?"

While waiting, she leans her head against her hand and takes a few deep breaths, momentarily closing her eyes.

[Tay-Dor]

[El Cid]

“Ace is a pro. As long as we keep it professional and only biz, he’ll respect that. Don’t make it personal.” El Cid confirms. “Also remember his preference is for bioware, so he may have something to deal with toxins.”

El Cid thinks a moment, “if you want to negotiate with Ace, do it after the snatch. I happen to know he’s busy with the Shadows which means we’d be forced to work on his time table and not ours, which could frag our bonuses.”

“Something to keep in mind. Yes, he seems nice because he feeds street kids. That doesn’t mean he isn’t a stone cold killer. You don’t survive on the streets for long with niceness.” El Cid explains. “I had a conversation with him once about morals. I won’t kill except in self defense. He said he couldn’t afford to keep his morals.

[archolewa]

{Baby Blue}

Baby Blue smiles tightly. "Why do you think I don't want to be trapped in a van with him?"

[Tay-Dor]

[El Cid]

El Cid laughs, “Unless it’s a jumbo-sized van, with me in it I don’t think he’ll have much room to work with.”

Sobering, he continues, “But perhaps he doesn’t need much.”

[archolewa]

{Baby Blue}

"Right. So, I think we have a decision to make. Do we try to just kidnap Ace and hand him off to this Lore, or do we try to negotiate a technically-not-a-double-cross with him?"

"The second option has a much bigger upside. If we pull it off, it means we walk away with Simpleton's money and minimal damage to our reputation, plus maybe the start of an ally in Ace. And we aren't tied to Simpleton. But it's also way more dangerous. If we want to negotiate with Ace, he needs to be coherent. If he's coherent enough to talk to us, he's coherent enough to try to break free and fight back. And he sounds very dangerous. Plus, if Simpleton finds out we tried to all-but-double-cross him, and Ace ain't having it either, then we've got *two* very connected men mad at us with nobody to hide behind. On the other hand, if we just try to drug Ace and bring him to Lore, we can keep Ace drugged. That makes it much less likely he'll get violent. It means that we won't make an enemy of Simpleton regardless of what happens. But it probably means we're tying ourselves to Simpleton. Ace might not hold it against us, but that doesn't mean he'll have any interest in hiring us."

"So, I propose we put it to a vote. No sense in talking tactics until we know the strategy. I'm going to assume that Headstone wants to negotiate with Ace, since he proposed it in the first place. That's one for negotiating with Ace. While I liked the idea at first, the more I think about it, the more nervous it makes me. Too high risk. So, guilty as it makes me feel, I think we should just kidnap Ace and hand him off to Lore. That's one for each."

[shaidar]

{Revs}

"I don't mean to complicate matters but there is an option sort of between the two, where we kidnap him and inject him with cyber inhibitors, and then talk to him."

[archolewa]

{Baby Blue}

"I would consider that part of how we decide to negotiate with Ace," says Baby Blue. "The question I'd like to see us answer right now isn't 'How do we negotiate with him as safely as possible?' but 'Do we try to negotiate with him at all?'"

[shaidar]

{Revs}

"OK, that's fair enough. I just wanted to make sure it was understood that by negotiating we don't just mean going up to a dangerous Street Sam and talking about kidnapping him, there can be nuances."

[archolewa]

{Baby Blue}

"Of course. First, we decide if we want to tell the super dangerous Street Sam we're kidnapping him, then we can decide how we want to broach the subject," says Baby Blue with a dry smile.

[Tay-Dor]

[Marduk]

“He’s not the bogey man and he’s only one man. Respect his skills, but don’t go in expecting him to walk through all of us. if you start out defeated, you will lose.” El Cid exclaims. He runs a warty hand through his hair.

“Grab him first. Negotiate from strength. Plus it lets him see what we are capable of. Instead of sedation, try a paralytic that will affect his body, but not his head.”

[shaidar]

{Revs}

“Grab him first. Negotiate from strength. Plus it lets him see what we are capable of. Instead of sedation, try a paralytic that will affect his body, but not his head.”

Revs nods as El-Cid speaks "I agree with El-Cid, grab then negotiate."

[shaidar]

{Revs}

{Baby Blue}

"So, I propose we put it to a vote. No sense in talking tactics until we know the strategy. I'm going to assume that Headstone wants to negotiate with Ace, since he proposed it in the first place. That's one for negotiating with Ace. While I liked the idea at first, the more I think about it, the more nervous it makes me. Too high risk. So, guilty as it makes me feel, I think we should just kidnap Ace and hand him off to Lore. That's one for each."

"From what I remember of the conversation, Headstone was up for talking him on route to Houston."

OOC: Apologies for the double-post.

[kennethboyd69]

Tears listens to everything

"I agree with Cid Nab him show him our strong side and be all business, Negotiate that way. We will need a paralytic that will affect him and allow us time to work things out with him. I also agree I would much rather work with ace than simpleton. " ponders " That said money is money eventually even if we do everyjob professionally were still going to end up on someones shit list"

[CoyotesLuck]

{Pacman}

"There are some good points in all of this. Key points to pivot on are that the target is a professional and that he has reactions to some meds. If we have our initial contact..." Pacman gestures towards El Cid ".. and I sit with Ace and hold his attention a moment for others to box us all in. Then we gently explain that we share a problem in that we are locked in to transport him and that he can join our trip peacefully or drugged and bound as he prefers. We can also, in that conversation, offer our services as his extraction and return travel agents."

[Ozgood13]

{Bone Biter}

Bone drags himself out of his rack. He hits the shower to help wake himself up. His hair is too long, so he takes the clippers and buzzes all the hair down to the scalp.

Once the "morning Routine" is completed, he gets dressed in a plain gray T-shirt and tactical pants and slides into his worn boots. Once ready, he goes out to the main room.

Bone looks around the room and gets a mug of black coffee. "El Cid, Tears; sorry I was out so long. My contacts in H Town can help with a safe house out on Galveston Island when the time is right. I agree on the way to negotiate from strength."

Bone takes a sip of coffee and looks around for BB and Rev's reactions.

[archolewa]

{Baby Blue}

"Right. So it sounds like we're going to try to kidnap Ace, and then negotiate with him," says Baby Blue. "Ok. So how do we want to do that? El Cid can't just try to get him drunk. We need him sober if we want to talk to him. We also need to make sure El Cid isn't actively involved in the actual kidnapping, and to get our hands on this paralytic that El Cid is talking about, a Soy free one at that."

"Here are my thoughts. Mostly what Headstone had in mind initially I think. Revs and I are in the van, nearby. I'm keeping a lookout, Revs is at the wheel. El Cid is walking Ace out, ideally Ace isn't completely wasted, though he's probably going to be at least a little bit drunk. Headstone, Bone Biter, Pacman and Tears jump them at an opportune spot. We try to inject El Cid with a placebo, and Ace with the actual paralytic, and then drag them into the van. At that point we negotiate with them. El Cid playacts he's wary of us, but comes around to our side, and helps us try to convince Ace. Does that sound reasonable? There are some details that need to be ironed out. Where and how to get a paralytic. How fast acting is it, or do we need to use a short-term tranquilizer for the initial grab, where exactly to do the grab. But I don't want to talk those until we've got the outlines of the grab figured out."

[CoyotesLuck]

{Pacman}

"Just spitballing, but what if we slap trauma patches on em.. don't those knock a person out for a little while?"

[kennethboyd69]

tears

"I think we need to get a couple doses of Gamma-scopolamine to use on ace. Though I wouldnt suggest using them both at the same time. Trauma patches would take way to long to work and could be seen as an attack making ace target us and el cid also against us since he would be playing along to be take as well. at least with the Gamma it is injected and could be easy to give just by bumping into ace while acting drunk."

[archolewa]

tears

"I think we need to get a couple doses of Gamma-scopolamine to use on ace. Though I wouldnt suggest using them both at the same time. Trauma patches would take way to long to work and could be seen as an attack making ace target us and el cid also against us since he would be playing along to be take as well. at least with the Gamma it is injected and could be easy to give just by bumping into ace while acting drunk."

"Not familiar with Gamma-scopolamine. Is that something we can get our hands on in the next few hours?" asks Baby Blue.