Reflection (Downtime I)

Both shadowrunners pause when the woman turns around. When she says her piece and identifies their client as 'Ms. Telestrian,' neither Heartbreaker nor Sigrún so much as twitches. There is no reaction whatever. After the human woman is done speaking, Heartbreaker takes one step back and one to the side to put a hip on the railing and crosses her arms. "Charmed," she says in a flat voice.

Sigrún doesn't change her position. She stands there, relaxed, regarding the woman thoughtfully. "I think I do mind, actually," she says. "Fortunately for you, I am a patient and forgiving woman." She gestures to indicate herself, then Heartbreaker as she goes on, saying, "I'm Sam. This is my sister, Deanna. You want to tell me who you are and what you're doing here?"

"Not particularly." The woman says easily. "I'm afraid my clients' secrets are just that, secret." Her smile widens. "Before you and the inestimable miss Deanna threaten me, please know that I don't respond well to violence, delicate flower that I am." The smile becomes a grin. "Of course, my name is a matter of some small notoriety, and you'll just research it later." She uncrosses her arms and bows. "Isabelle Lugosi, at your service."

The name rings a bell. She's a thief, a damn good one. She came on the Seattle scene two years afo, specializing in stealing and transporting occult objects, though for the right price she'll hit anything. She's rich, smart, incredibly skilled, and she leaves such scant evidence that she can brazenly flaunt her identity in some circles and KE can't pin her down. She won't rat out or turn on a client, but she can be bought out, usually for ludicrously high prices.

She smirks as the name registers, then continues. "So then, what brings you two to miss Telestrian's little bolthole, hmmm?"

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Lugosi," Sigrún says in response to the Isabelle's introduction, her tone warm and pleasant. If she recognizes the name or thinks anything of it, she gives no indication whatever.

When Isabelle asks her question, Sigrún smiles apologetically, and to all appearances it seems genuine. "Clients, secrets. You know how it is."

Isabella laughs heartily. "Well said, Miss Sam!" She opines cheerfully. "I do indeed 'know how it is.'" She shakes her head in mock sadness. "What a business we're in, that we can't even trust fellow professionals with such trivial information." She glances neutrally at the coffin door, then sighs and looks down. "Look, I know when I'm outmatched, but just like you, I've a reputation to uphold. I can't reveal my client's secrets any more than you can reveal yours."

As Isabella is talking, Sigrún's perceptions are sliding into the arcane, letting her see the ebb and flow of magic in the people and objects around her. Little pinpricks of light are suddenly scattered across her vision, the size, shape, and color of them telling her the relative strengths and potencies of the sorceries and spiritualisms all throughout the coffin cube. Here, a small sustaining focus holding onto some kind of health spell as its caster tries desperately to fend off starvation. There, a minor spirit conversing with its lonely master, the spirit his only friend left. Elsewhere, a minor talent is spinning petty magics between shaking palms before drug-ravaged eyes that are nevertheless filled with new wonder.

And before her, a nova next to distant stars, is Bella Lugosi.

Isabella is a lightshow unto herself. She's not much of a power on her own, a middling-grade practicioner at best, but the number of foci, attuned or imbued items, alchemical preparations, and other magical trinkets scattered about her person is awe-inspiring. The small pouch hanging inside her jacket carries a number of minor tokens designed to obfuscate, blind, and confuse, the ring on her right hand is a power focus, the tattoo between her shoulderblades gifts her with some kind of increased physical prowess, the knife stashed up her left sleeve carries a hex on it that could fell a sasquatch. There are others, too, but even taken together, the multi-thousand nuyen arsenal of magical tricks is nothing compared to the pendant around her neck. Its not a focus, or an attuned item, its purpose difficult to discern but its power unmistakable.

Bella cocks her head after a few seconds and raises a finger, wangging it with a mocking look on her sculpted features. "Naughty, naughty, Sam." She chides. "Can't a girl have some secrets?" Suddenly, all of the telltales about her magics and magical items wink out, tightly masked by something.

To Sigrún's right and Isabella's left, however, a single magical signature remains. Behind the door of coffin 1118 is a signature of considerable potency, an object of some kind that lies dormant now, but carries a wealth of strange power.

Sigrún grins. "If the current state of my FaceFriend account is any indication, then the answer is clearly no. Still, if all you want is to leave, then who am I to stand in your way? As soon as Deanna is satisfied that you didn't actually open the coffin, you'll be free to go."

Isabella snorts but stands aside. Crossing her arms, she leans on the railing of the catwalk and gestures at the coffin. "Go ahead then, Deanna. Don't let me keep you."

Heartbreaker uncrosses her arms and steps past Isabella, sparing barely a glance for the tall thief. Quickly, she checks over the door, wishing she had Saio here. She's no footpad, and her knowledge of breaking into containers usually involves blunt force or asking the owner nicely. Still, she knows a few basics, and since she has the proper widget attached to her AR, she can ping the coffin. The answer comes back quickly: the coffin hasn't been opened in thirty-four days, and has eight days left on its rental.

After a quick once over that turns up no indications of tampering or forced entry, and a brief search to turn up any RFID tags or hidden devices friendly or fearsome, Heartbreaker turns to Sigrún and shakes her head. "Its clean, as far as I can see. She can go now, I think."

Sigrún turns to Isabella. "Like my sister says," she says cheerfully, indicating Heartbreaker with her thumb. "See you around, Isabella."

Isabella gives them both a sour look. Then she laughs shortly and shakes her head. "Savor it, ladies. You won't catch me out like this again." Uncrossing her arms, she saunters past Sigrún, patting her on the shoulder. "For what its worth," she says as she goes past, "I hope the girl is well. Her family is loathsome." Then she is gone, down the catwalk to the stairs.

Once Isabella is gone, the easy grin and friendly demeanor vanishes from Sigrún's face. It's not that her smile never reached her eyes - it did - but it's gone like it was never there just the same. "Hell's bells," she subvocalizes, once again transmitting her words directly to Heartbreaker's commlink. "That woman had enough active foci and enchanted equipment on her person to power a small city. And she wanted us to know. The way she hid it all from me after she saw that I'd seen it - she could have concealed it all from the start and I wouldn't have been able to see a thing, but she didn't. She waited until after I saw what she was carrying."

Heartbreaker stares for a moment, then shudders and mutters, "Great. Just wiz. As if this week wasn't already a tremendous clusterfrag." She shakes her head. "Let's just open this thing up, get the box, and get the hell out of dodge." She says, gesturing at the coffin. Unlike Isabella, she has the proper codes, so it only takes her a moment with the keypad and a brief ping from her AR to get the door to the coffin unlocked. She glances at Sigrún and quietly asks, "Ready?"

Sigrún concentrates for a moment, holding her left hand forward, palm out, with the thumb, forefinger and pinkie extended. Then she nods. "It's clear." She looks a little disturbed, a little concerned. "Huh. Whatever our girl has in there has got some major league dark mojo attached to it. Try not to let it touch your skin if you can avoid it."

Heartbreaker nodded and swung back the door, revealing the interior of the coffin. It is, as such things usually are, unremarkable. The walls, floor, and ceiling are all grey padded memory material, the far end sloped up slightly to act as a pillow. There are two charging jacks in the wall of the two-and-a-half meter long cubicle, set halfway down and a half-meter off the floor. Next to them, in the middle of the cubicle, is the sum total of Michelle's posessions, everything she has acquired in her miserable little existence, stacked into a neat pile.

Heartbreaker and Sigrún can see on the bottom of the pile a synthleather jacket, black and well cared-for. Its bulk and the way it is folded bespeak the armored plates, probably SecureTech, set in the material. On top of the jacket sits a vacuum bag with a few changes of clothing inside, and next to it is a small, clear carrying bag, the kind a teenager might have, with a few sundries and a cheap commlink. A duffel sits against the right-hand wall of the cubicle, its contents largely unremarkable, odds and ends mostly, though the gunmetal glint of some kind of pistol can be seen.

The things that stand out the most, however, are the box and the blade. The box is small, a lacquered oak case the length of a forearm and maybe half that wide, and only a few centimeters deep. It is this that Heartbreaker reaches for, flipping it open gingerly with two fingers. Inside, in individual modlts, sit six syringes, each filled with a clear solution. The syringes themselves are marked "AEXD: For Medical Purposes Only" in Sperethiel. Heartbreaker nods and retrieves it, then steps back to stare.

Next to the pile is a sword. Long, with a one-handed hilt and a straight blade, it is small for a longsword, but too long and narrow to be any other kind of weapon. A ruby set in its pommel glimmers dimly, and both the pommel and small quillions appear to be silver. The hilt is wrapped in black wire, and the blade is hidden by an expensive, polished, hand-tooled leather sheath. Even to Heartbreaker, the mystical presence of the weapon can be felt, old and hungry and cold, a certain, impressively final doom clinging to the weapon.