Cathal's Journal

17 Jux 45

It's now a little after 4pm in the afternoon, and the 6 hours sleep I've just managed was really needed. Managing time when shadow walking is more complex than it first apppears. The 12 hours previous to that also demonstrated a lot of things, most of which apppear to completely pass Joanne by. Our little jaunt did however demonstrate 3 things, Joanne for all her bluster is a shrinking violet, Charlie is a lot more powerful than she appears and  certainly more powerful than any of the rest of us, and we have a great deal to learn to even begin to work out where our futures may lie.

I aught to return to our excursion and the events that transpired. It didn't start auspiciously, with Renn proving once again he cannot follow simple instructions. "Smart Casual Dress", was what Charlie had requested, so Renn turns up in a Hawian Shirt and shorts. How he ever made it through Sandhurst, let alone basic training, I've no idea. This meant we all had to wait whilst he returned to his room and changed into something more approriate. Charlie was definately not amused.

We then returned to the exhibition complex where a Mizzurian minibus with driver was waiting for us. Charlie told him to head for the highway. Given the manner in which he behaved he must have done this sort of thing before, because no sooner had we departed, I felt the presence of a pattern under construction, and Charlie adopted a semi-vacent look, as one might when concentrating hard on something. This was the first inkling of her capabilities as she seemed to assemble the Pattern in about 8 minutes. Pattern assembled, I'm assuming she started shadow walking, as about 30 minutes later we pulled up on Sunset Strip in Las Vegas, and I'm pretty sure you can't get from downtown San Francisco to Las Vegas in  30 minutes. Having vacated the mini-bus, she indicated to the driver he should return to the Expo.

Her next statement and actions were very interesting.."I'm somewhat known in these parts in this form" where appon she assumed Joanne's form, albeit slightly taller. Her rendition was also considerably better than when Rodri had tried it a couple of days ago. This almost certainly confirms that it was her in wolfhound mode who followed me shortly after Cordelia delivered my Expo Invite. With her "in-disguise" we entered one of the Casinos, where she procured a quantity of chips for the slot machines. Handing the chips out, she explained how you can use the pattern to manipulate probablity to accomlish things, like getting slot machines to pay out jackpots. We were told to play slowly, whilst she set up the right parameters. After about 20 minutes we were mostly down to a couple of coins each, then the machines started to pay out, small amounts at first, but by 10 minutes later, when one payed out the jackpot, we'd all at least trippled our original cash of coins. We were also starting to attract some attention. Charlie had Renn and Alana go and cash in our winnings.

Whilst they were off doing this she said she needed a credit card, which she needed help to obtain, but already had a target in mind. Her ploy was simple, bump into the woman and knock her down, then the person who picked up the womans purse, Daniel as it transppired, would remove the credit card before handing the it back. Neither Joanne, Natsuki, nor I wanted anything to do with this, and it gave me a new perspective on her morals, although her subsequent actions were contrary to my initial judgement, since not only has she returned the card but also recompensed the woman for the trouble caused. And the reason she needed the credit card, so she could hire another mini-bus, although that turned out not to be quite as easy as she thought it would be, and left us hanging about in the rental office for half an hour whilst the bus was delivered.

Boarding the bus, we head off once more this time with Charlie driving. Again, almost as soon as we set off she started asembling the Pattern. As the sun came up a couple of hours later, we found ourselves in Washington DC, and that journey is definately not possible without shadow walking. Apparently we needed to go "shopping" for the "equipment" we would need for the next stage of her demonstration and as it was 1am when we left Las Vegas, we needed to be somewhere where an "Army surplus" store would be open, hence the East Coast. 

We arrived at the store just gone 7am as the store was opening, although it immediately shut again so it could serve it's VIP customers. I strongly suspect that Charlie just manipulated the minds of the 2 staff. People really got upset at this point, wanting to know what Charlie was up to. Her explanation whilst rational, given that's what her mother had requested of her, was she was showing us what could be done with the Pattern. However, her next wasn't. She was going to emulate a stunt pulled by her mother, and we, thats right all of us, were going to relieve a South American Drug Barron of several million dollars of bearer bonds, and hence the little shopping trip. I think I was a little stunned like most of the others at this point, and only Daniel and Renn bothered to take any fire arms, although Charlie loaded up a holdall with an assortment of weapons, and insisted we all kit ourselves out in military fatigues.

As we were about to return to the mini bus, something transpired between Renn and Joanne, which caused Natalia to step in to defend Joanne. That girl has a mean left hook. As he got up he pulled on of the pistols on her, and shot the trump she was holding out of her hand. Charlie flashed at this point, in a manner very reminiscent of her mother, and told them to stop pissing about. They chose to aquiesse, and we returned to the minibus.

Charlie then tells us that the mini-bus is not suitable for the next stage of the journey, and we're going to need some sort of armoured ATV, which we're going to need to locate, which is also something else you can do with the Pattern, search for objects and things. Typically its used to search for gold, silver, and gems, but can be used to search for pretty much anything if you have the skill. In this case she's looking for a BAE Caimen MTV which is being transported, where the transporter has broken down. I don't think any of us were impressed by this, but none of us actually chose to trump back to the Mansion, despite all of us having the capability to do so.

It took Charlie 2 hours to locate the transport, stopped in a layby by the side of a highway. She pulled the minibus in about 50 yards ahead of it. The immediate response from my compatriots was to ask her what she was going to do. I had an idea which proved partially correct. Renn also noted that he could drive the MTV. Charlie got out and approached the truck, the drivers responded as I suspect she expected, pulling fire arms and leveling them at her. She didn't flinch. First one then the other lowered their weapons. She moved over and relieved them of their weapons before commencing to tie them up. Renn got out and commenced unloading the MTV.

With the transport's fuel transferred to the MTV, we also transferred, leaving Daniel to follow in the minibus. We drove for an hour through some very interesting country side before arriving in a small town a little inside the Mexican border where Charlie called a 15 minute break. I don't know if it was just me that noticed but she was starting to look tired. Things got interesting at this point. Almost everyone wanted to know where they were going and what the plan was. Charlies response was met with incredualtion and disbelief. "I told you, somewhere in Colombia most likely, where we're going to relieve a drug lord of several million dollars worth of Bearer bonds, sort of like my mother did." Her retort to the "but you're mothers a god" cries, which is amusing in itself, was most reveiling, "No shes not, and there are more of us and we're better equipped, she did it with just a 4x4 jeep and her then boyfriend shortly after she walked the Pattern", which did sort of shut them up for a bit. It does also illustrate the point they were trying to make, if she did this on  her own just after she learnt to walk the Pattern then, whilst she may not be a god, and from what little I know from my mother this applies to all of us, then she does posses abilities that should not be underestimated.

We were instructed to leave the mini-bus here on the grounds it was unsuitable for where we were going and we would need it to get back to Sacramento, which I don't quite understand given we all have Trumps of the mansion.We setoff once more, Renn driving as before. The terrain arrounf us changed as we drove becomming both more mountainous and more and more like a jungle. The termperature and the humidity also went up, although this was mitigated to a degree by the almost continual increse in elevation. After a couple of hours Charlie told Renn to stop an pull over. She then got out telling everyone to stay in the MTV whilst she "checked on a few things". Both Renn and Natalya chose to ignore her instructions and follow her.

When they return to the MTV a discussion ensues. Apparrently the Hacienda we're after is on the other side of the valley a few thousand feet below us. According to Charlie there is an airstrip somewhere on the valley floor as well and that should be where our target is. Charlie thinks its also likely that the approach road to the airstrip is going to be booby trapped which counters Renn's "this should be easy, lets just tank it down there and grabb what we want". If he's the soldier he claims to be then why would he even suggest this? Its just contrary to common sense. Various of the others want to know why we can't just Shadowwalk down there, but Charlie just says we can't without anyform of explanation. Either she didn't know or there are limits to what you can do when Shadowwalking.
Having dismissed Renn's full frontal approach Charlie then confrims that's sort of what the plan is except there is some use of the Pattern to mitigate some of the consequences of such a plan but she's not going to be able to use it until they get much closer. There is another clamour at this point, and somewhat rightly so, about the road being mined. Charlie dismisses the isue, stating that the Pattern can't be used to detect them and you just have to rely on your senses. Almost all of the others, and I noted that Natsuki was not amongst them had no idea what she was talking about, the "hair on the back of your neck" syndrome as she put it. She then says "well now's a good time to learn" and instructs Renn to start down the track to the valley floor. He does but drives really slowly. Charlie tells him to "Bloody well put his foot down as they're sitting ducks and fucking exposed until they get close to the valley floor and into the tree line". I'll give it to him, he did actually comply.

Having bounced our way down the track and into the trees, the thrre of us, myself, Natsuki, and Chalie, all screamed at him to "Stop" at the same time. He did but apparently only barely in time.When Charlie cautiously got out, there was apparently a trip wire a couple of feet infront of the truck. She ordered Renn to back up about 30ft whilst she dealt with it. It was apparently why she brought the toolkit she did with us. Nobody even bothered to ask exactly how did she know the mines were going to be there, and more importantly how did she know how to actually deal with them in the first place.

Having dealt with the mines she climbs back into the passenger seat. We could all hear the drone of an approaching aircraft at this point. Charlie tells Renn to head for the aircraft no matter what happens. As he does as instructed I could feel the Pattern being assembled only this time the power draw was far more intense. My initial thought at the time was "was this because what she was doing required more power or was it because she was doing it in a hurry?". It turned out to be the latter, as a few seconds after we came under fire, the ricochet of bullets hitting the MTV suddenly stopped, at least for a minute or so.

Suddenly there is a change of tack. It appears the limosene that were after is getting away and we need to stop it. Alana and Rodri open roof hatches and begin to fire at it using weapons from the bag that Charlie had brought with us. Charlie drops the Pattern at this point saying its no longer of any use as it only works like a flat shield and we're now taking fire from the side.
There is a sudden jolt as we collide with the limosene which apparently spins sideways so that we're now pushing it along. Somebody then shouts "Gunship", as it passes overhead. Daniel grabs a rifle from the holdall and opens another of the roof hatch. There is a huge explosion behind us as the transport aircraft apparently explodes, then a deafing din as the gunship starts firing at the MTV. Daniel then shouts "Got him" which is followed by another explosion, apparently as the gunship hits the ground.

Renn halts the MTV and Charlie, who appeared to be summoning the Pattern again at this point, says something about retrieving the bearer bonds from the Limosene. Natsuki then does the first of a couple of things that take me completely by surprise. The first is that she opens the rear door and jumps out the back of the MTV. What possessed me to follow her I do not know. With bullets ricocheting off the MTV and I guess Alana and Rodri returning fire, we make our way to the limosene. The occupants are all dead, but the briefcase is handcuffed to one of the guys in the rear. Natsuki appears to just stop as if concentrating and then lets out one of those yells that you see in hollywood films puching the guy in the hand as she does so, before pulling the briefcase away without any resistance. I can only guess that somehow she shattered all the bones in the hand with her punch. Having retrieved the briefcase, and dodging gunfire we clamber back into the MTV which pulls away at high speed.

The world appearently goes haywire at this point, although those of us in the rear of the Caimen are unable to observe this for the most part. The engine of the MTV does cut out several times for a number of seconds before springing back into life. After about 10 minutes I notice the Pattern drop and Charlies calls a halt. She pretty much falls out of the passenger seat, looking ashen, grey, and totally exhausted.  There is a half hour delay whilst she snacks on high energy bars and drinks. Raven uses magic to open the briefcase. Apart from the bundels of bearer bonds which Charlie says will need to go through a suitable fence as they are all traceable, there are a considerable number of bundles of $100 bills still in their warppers. Charlie starts handing out bundles to each of us, 4 per person as if they were chocolate bars. Each bundle is apparently $10,000 which means that in that instance I've gained more money that in my whole life to date. Charlie seems completely non-plussed that she's just handed out the best part of $400,000.  Having somewhat recovered she climbs back into the passenger seat of the MTV, and we make our way back to the Mexican border town where we left the mini-bus.

It's obvious to everyone that Charlie is completely exhausted at this point and taking the mini-bus back is somewhat pointless. It's hired under a false name, so any loss would be covered by their insurance. Alana suggests that we just trump back to the mansion and given that Charlie hasn't the energy to hold open the gate volunteers to do so herself. Most of us opt to use our own trumps instead.

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