Europe Plaza (20 rue Pierre Trebod)

William makes sure the hood is covering his face from any shadows, moving like he finds it a bit cold. He looks at Duncan and almost rolled his eyes. He enhanced his hearing and listened to the other side. Then looked at the lock. "Let me see that..."

Spoiler:

William stares at the lock, "I could probably get past it easily if I had the right tools, but I kind of broke mine before coming to Bordeaux... either way, theres atleast one guy on the other side typing on his keyboard."

Duncan listens to William's report on the room, and pulls something out of his pocket.  It appears to be a thick fountain pen, although when he removes the cap it has a spray nozzle-- it looks like some kind of pepper spray.  Duncan displays the object for a moment, and then speaks to William in a quiet tone.

'At least one'?  Or one?  If it's only one, we might just wait for a moment when the hallway is clear, and knock.  They might not open the door to a man's voice, though.  It might take some sweet harmless woman to get them to even take a peek.  Duncan looks at Nyx as he says the last part, and adds in a higher, feminine voice: "Excuse me, my key card doesn't seem to be working."

I know this is a bit... aggressive, but I don't think I can just charm whoever is in there with my dazzling smile.  It's this, or break the door down, which gives them too much time to react... and trip an alarm.  Or, we look around and come back to this later.  But we don't know how much time we have.

Nyx had gone back to her phone right up until Duncan started talking once again. Her attention quickly shot back to him and her arm visibly twitched.

That will attract attention, people will hear them squeal. I know we got a mystery van til one a.m. I vote come back later.

The Nosferatu went back to her phone to send a text.

Pierre :

When she was done she placed the phone back into her pocket and lent against the wall to see how this plan would play out.

"I'm a vampire, not a vampire bat, I can't echo the other room with a few clicks with my tongue. I heard 1 keyboard being used, judging by the size of the building, I'd suspect only 1 person but I offer no guarantee." William added with a roll of his eyes in a quiet tone.

He took out 2 items from his pockets, a micro usb drive and a small gray cloth pouch and handed them to Duncan. "Use the stick to get any data you might wish to keep, use the black thumbstick from the bag to make the data unrecoverable after deletion, just copy the right program for the right OS onto the pc, don't run it from the stick and take it out before you run it, I presume you know how to run files on most major systems? If they still use tapes, theres a small box with a tiny magnet in there, just move it over the tapes, but it back in the box before you put it back in the bag. Theres a few small screwdrivers in there, black tips are magnetised, other ones aren't. Me and Fred will go 'sniffing' for wine cellars."

Duncan merely shrugs when Nyx doesn't like his suggestion; he doesn't seem to resent her negative vote.  The mention of a 'mystery van' causes a brief second of confusion; but realization dawns on the Brujah's face as he understands.  As he replaces the pen in his pocket, Duncan says:
Just offering an option.  I wasn't wild about the plan either.  Frankly, I might be better off just grabbing and holding them quickly, after you got them to open the door.  Might be less noisy.

The van was a good idea; we would need something like that if we actually found your man.  It'd be hard to strap him across the back of my bike, if he's in torpor.

Duncan listens to William, and accepts the items offered with no comments, until William asks whether Duncan knows how to run files.  This causes a snort of amusement from the Brujah neonate.

Yeah, I think I can do that.  I'm not sure we need to erase their files, but we'll see what we decide if we go in.  By the way, a good place for you guys to start would be the basement-- it's logical, and close.  Just a suggestion.

To Nyx, Duncan says:  Well?  Do we try for a B&E?   Go with them?  Search the trash area for any signs of Momo's stuff?  Or, umm, a bag of ashes?  What's your vote?

When William mentions him and Fred going to check the wine cellars, Fred moves closer to him.
Very well, I'll happily assist in any way I'm capable of.
Fred looks a bit more excited than he's been up until this point from the previous blunder at the Victor Hugo street; maybe he sees a chance to make amends?

Nyx shrugged indecisively to Duncan.

I don't mind which but makes more sense to come back, if he isn't gone you can either spray him or kill him. It also has the added benefit of if the door gets shut accidentally I've got less chance of getting caught with picks in locks, so no bribes or more deaths needed.

Perception + Empathy >3:

Alright we can come back later.

Since you don't seem to have a preference, let's check out the dumpster, near where we came in last night.  Not a pleasant task, but it's standard procedure; and I think we're better suited to it than Fred and William.  Your clan is used to doing whatever it takes to get the job done, right?

Besides... the less we smell like our usual selves when we get into that Security room, the better. Duncan smiles a bit when he says the last part.

Nyx pushed her weight off the wall as Duncan came to a conclusion on what to do, her lip quirked at his comment on her clan.


It'll be one of my lesser sins, technically not even a sin since it's not illegal to go through people's bins and take stuff. 

She seems to be waiting for him to make the first move to leave.

William walks towards the nearest direction that might show promise of leading towards the basement.
"Alright, you guy go trash binning, we'll check out the lower levels."

As Duncan and Nyx finish going through what little trash remains, Duncan sighs.
I was afraid of that.  Not that there was ever a good chance we'd find anything; but it was worth a try.

I wonder if William and Fred had any luck finding access to the basement.  From the way it looked outside, there's an outside ramp that goes down, but it may not be accessible from the inside.

Do you want to check the security room again?  I'm betting we don't have a lot of time before Lambert returns.  It would be nice if we didn't have to worry about a guard, but if we pick a time when the ground floor hallway is empty, I think you can lure him to the door, and I can knock him out fairly quickly... and without too much noise.

Nyx looked up as she retied one of the last bin bags. 


Security guard, means we won't have to worry about cameras when we have to go back outside...

After finishing with the last bag she put it back into the bin and turned back to look at Duncan. 

Security room is it, then.

Duncan looks pleased that that's settled -- or perhaps it's the fact that they're done searching through the garbage -- but he frowns when Nyx mentions not worrying about the cameras.

I'm not sure I like leaving a 'salted earth' scenario behind us, like you and William suggest.  I suppose I'd prefer to leave no traces.  But I guess that's not going to happen, so we'd better cover our tracks, and muddy the waters a little behind us.

I'd still prefer not killing the guard, though.  We'll see if he gives us that option.  Maybe if you knock on the door, and say, "Hello?  Is anyone there?  I lost my key card."  Then I'll duck around the doorframe and grab him when he opens the door.  Too bad I didn't bring any cable ties, or rope, or anything else to immobilize him.  Duncan sighs, a gesture he's used all too often tonight.  I know; I hate the lack of planning too.  This is not how you run an op.

The Brujah gestures toward the inner door, the one leading to the hallway.
Shall we?

William sighed after he found nothing.
"Alright, the basement isn't accessible from the hallway, either it's from a special room, possibly the security room, or we need to access it from the outside."

Without another glance, he walked towards the exit. As he opens the doors, he lets Fred pass and turns to block the door in some way. He looks on the floor and sees a blank business card. He picks it up. "Ohh, handy." As he placed it in the doorway and made his way around the building looking for an entrance to the basement.

Nyx shrugged at hearing Duncan's words.

Me too, but needs must. You never know, we may get lucky and not need to tamper too much with them. 

Yeah, I can do that, hope you can move fast. 

Duncan could see she smiled slightly at his choice of words.


It's not how I like to do things either, better and usually more efficient to work around the Kine but yeah, we can't do that because this was all do it, do it now shit.

With a nod she stepped forward and held the door back into the main hallway open for him.

Fred looks around the area for a way down into the basement, but obviously fails.
When William suggest other options to search, Fred goes towards the exit and leaves.
Very well, perhaps we will be more fortunate outside.

Fred stops when William doesn't follow him outside immediately.
Mister William?
Fred tilts his head when William picks up something from the ground, but thinks little of it and simply follows William around the building in search for another way into the basement.