The Evil Map

On the flight back, the Garou ponder all the exceptionally weird stuff they keep getting involved in. They lay this at Ambrose's feet. Ambrose is not sanguine about accepting responsibility for it. When he protests, Olesya tells him, "Ask yourself then why we keep encountering these Men in Black." Ambrose positively bristles. "Are you accusing me of being manipulated by the Technocracy?!" Sonya breaks in over his outrage: "I believe she meant that you may have a destiny about you."

"Oh," says Ambrose, mulling that one over. "I don't really do destiny." "That's okay," says Sonya. "Destiny does you." "Destiny does you hard," Jonas chimes in, lewdly and with complete accuracy.

Deciding to sulk a bit while he puts together his latest report for the chantry, Ambrose spots an Asian girl on the wing of the plane. She's just sitting there. The Garou don't see her when he points her out, but when Aila holds up Turtle to see out the window, he nods that he does. A little bit later, Ambrose spots an Asian guy all in white wearing sunglasses on the other wing. He wonders if that's a Technocrat, except it's really not their MO to show off like that.

"Are there other Asians in white?" Aila asks.
Ambrose thinks about it. "Well..."
"What?" Sonya snaps when he pauses too long.
He answers sheepishly, "I was thinking Yakuza, but I doubt they'd be on the wing of the plane."
RF and Aila discuss luring the Asian girl in from the wing with video games, apparently blissfully incognizant (or amused by) of the casual racism of the idea. Olesya regally ignores them all. Sonya puts her head in her hands, and Jonas turns to her. "Sad when I'm the one you can rely on, ain't it?"

Ambrose proceeds to skulk around watching the man in white, who looks dubious. Sonya finally orders him to sit. "But he's...looking at me funny," Ambrose protests.
"That's because you look like a moron. Sit." He does, a little sulkily, and starts peering at the Asian girl, who seems to find him hilarious. "She's laughing at me."
"We all are," says Sonya.

Taking pity, Aila pacifies him with Tetris. Once the neurotic mage calms down, he starts sneaking readings at the two unregistered passengers. The girl reads as a spirit, if a little oddly, as if she'd managed to pick up her own bona fide human body somewhere. The Garou find that intriguing but not too bizarre. The man, on the other hand...he doesn't read as human at all. Actually, he kind of reads as a walking corpse: not a vampire, but a real honest-to-god dead body animated by a human soul. Creepy. And fascinating.

"The Elders were right," Sonya mutters. "Mages are nothing but trouble." The others nod sagely.

When the plane comes in to land, the strange people are gone, so the Garou grab their bags and head out. The pack takes Ambrose home then returns to the caern.

Shoved under the door of his apartment, Ambrose finds a manila envelope containing a map of Chicago's Chinatown with a location circled in red, along with a notice of an appointment with one Te Hwan on behalf of someone named Jwo Dye. There's also a warning: "Beware of contact with Ji Ken." The warning hits home. Ambrose has had too many people messing with him lately, so he heads to the chantry, where he has business to take care of anyway.

Mark is at the door, working the evening watch. He hands over an envelope identical to the one left at Ambrose's apartment. Apparently somebody didn't want to miss him. Ambrose shows it to him, then says he's going to see if one of the Akashics knows anything.

The Akashic, unfortunately, doesn't. When Ambrose describes his adventure in Siberia, the Akashic is able to tell him he was in hell, and explains the basics of "Kuei-jin" to him: sinners who die and are given a chance to redeem themselves by returning to their bodies. This explains the man in white. The Akashic has no idea about the girl, though. He says he'll research the Shinjuku Corp.

Ambrose asks him if he knows this Te Hwan, by any chance. "Well, we all know each other," the Akashic replies sarcastically, leaving poor Ambrose feeling rather awkward. Apparently the Akashic notices and finds it pretty amusing, because he continues, "Hey, I met this guy named Ralph in New York once. Friend of yours?" "Okay, okay," Ambrose gives in. "I'm sorry!"

Mark catches him again later on to remind him about the ninja they saw at the circus, and suggests that Ambrose might consider bringing the werewolves along. "What if you're hunted by ninjas?" he asks, finding the idea pretty entertaining. Ambrose says he'll give it some thought. Werewolves are extremely good at killing things that want to hurt you, but on the other hand they're awfully good at wrecking the joint. Subtlety, thy name is not Garou.

In the meantime, he settles in for some more research, learning that Ji Ken works in security for the Shinjuku Corporation, reporting to somebody named Sou Kwan. Ambrose finds a picture of Sou Kwan. There's something...wrong with the man. He looks completely emotionless, but there's just something inhuman about him. Te Hwan, meanwhile, is a well-to-do businesswoman who owns various businesses in Chinatowns across the US. It's remarkable for someone like her to be representing someone else. The meeting address is at one of her restaurants: quite a nice place, in fact, and pleasantly public.

He calls RF (who he finds the calmest and/or least scary of the bunch...let's say most reliable) to let the Garou know about this new development. They arrange for some of the pack to be in the dining room while Rey and Jonas hide outside.

The pack credits the sept in Washington when they return the First Klaive to the caern. They also pass on the news about the Prince of Minneapolis (which gets a snicker) driving the Garou out (which gets an ominous, "Oh, reeeeeally?").

In the morning, Ambrose passes Mark in the hall, who asks, "Hey! When did you get in?" Turns out, he wasn't on guard last night. He never saw Ambrose till this morning. They tell the head of the chantry, who finds that there's also no recording of Ambrose talking to anyone at the door, despite the fact that the Virtual Adepts set up that security system. This definitely bears looking into.

Ambrose makes sure to dress well, figuring the restaurant sounds classy enough to have a dress code, then Rey spins by to give him a lift to the place. The Garou are already there, as is the woman Ambrose is meeting. She's there to buy that copy of the transit map he picked up in the spirit world city, offering a princely sum of $1 million for it. It's tempting, but Ambrose figures the Technocracy flushes his accounts too often for it to be any real use to him, so he makes a counteroffer: information, notably information that'll help him survive the people likely to hunt him up in pursuit of this exceptionally valuable map.

Thus he learns that the man in white from the plane is her employer. Ji Ken is an 'akuma,' which is a servant of some demon lord. He can speak to ghosts, grow scorpion parts, detach his limbs, and control metal (which Ambrose takes as a bit of a challenge). She does not know anything at all about an Asian girl on the other wing. But while she's explaining, a guy dressed like a Hong Kong movie badass walks in the door, only to be blocked by the concierge, who's upset over the fellow's sartorial carnage. The woman ignores it for a bit, but when the kung-fu superstar refuses to leave, Te Hwan excuses herself and heads over to deal with it. Ambrose watches them briefly, curious about this: the man's definitely human, but Te Hwan is...not, quite. Actually she's got the craziest energy field around her, as if the only thing holding her together is wild, insane luck. Looks kind of like a paradox backlash waiting to happen, to him.

While she argues with Hong Kong Phooey, the Asian girl from the other wing of the plane sits down in her seat and starts eating Te Hwan's steak. She sarcastically complains about Ambrose apparently trusting everybody he comes across and registers her displeasure at this 'half-vampire' getting the map, which she says is a powerful magical artifact. She warns him that things are about to go down. "Ninjas on the roof," she says, to which Ambrose replies, "Really?" "No, not really, retard! God, you are gullible. Well. They might be up there by now." And she warns him that some group of people she calls a Zero Team is looking for him.

He asks her more about the map, which she says is "a cosmic windfall for whoever gets it." And Ambrose has a horrible thought. "Well, see I...um." "What did you do, mage?!" she accuses. "I...digitized it." "I don't even know what that does!" she exclaims in horror, to which he adds with morbid humor, "Do you know what a trinary is?"

Sonya uses a Gift to listen in on Ambrose's conversation, but he seems to be talking to midair. Aila opines that he's gone nuts, but Sonya has a vague sense of a hidden spirit in the room.

Meanwhile, Jonas and Rey spot those ninjas the girl mentioned. Rey heads in to warn the Garou, and he sees a monkey-girl talking to Ambrose and eating somebody else's meal. He pulls the fire alarm to evacuate the diners right before Jonas runs in screaming "NINJAS!"

At which point ninjas descend through the skylights.

The Hong Kong Action Hero pulls out a shotgun, while Te Hwan ducks behind the bar and pulls out weapons. The guests, filing out due to the alarm, don't seem to notice any of this, which works in the group's favor--except for one guy Rey spots who he defines as some weird faerie creature.

Sonya grabs a ninja that lands on her table, swinging it into another ninja, leading to the immortal line, "What's the damage on a ninja?" The "dead" ninjas disappear in a puff of smoke. They're chimera! Dream creatures! Seeing this, Rey laughs and the Asian biker guy pulls out prayer strips, which light ninjas on fire upon contact. Rey conjures up hellhounds to maul another. "Excuse me," Ambrose says to the girl, and dives under the table to do something to the carpet, which animates itself and starts tangling ninjas. The girl lunges for Ambrose's computer case (which is still slung over his shoulder) and leaps off with it, dragging him along for the ride as she, now quite monkey-like, swings across the chandeliers for the door. "I'll just get this to safety!" she yells at everybody else.

Jonas leaps in front of the door, so she dives through the window. Across the street there's some weird Asian guy who looks to be made of metal. He's looking straight at Ambrose. "It's a metal elemental," the monkey-girl explains, conjuring a cab from paper and throwing him into it. Aila sprints out of the restaurant and leaps on top of it. The metal guy/thing gives chase. Running outside, Jonas shifts to Crinos to chase onlookers away, sending them into screaming frothing panic. Gets the area vacated, though. RF spots a sporty red car taking off in pursuit of the cab, Te Hwan at the wheel, and he shifts into Glabro to chase it. The Asian badass pulls out on a motorcycle right behind him. Rey and Sonya finish mopping up the ninjas, then grab the rest of the group and bring up the rear in Rey's faerie-car.

Ambrose, looking backward, moans. The Technocracy's going to be on this like stink on fish. No way they're letting a caravan like this slide. And indeed, as he turns around to tell Monkey-girl so, he spots one of their black sedans heading for them on a collision course. The taxi sprouts a tail, using it to spring over the sedan, and the MiBs plow straight into the metal man, who sucks up the car, leaving two angry agents who roll to their feet and draw weapons on him.

Te Hwan improbably spins her sports car up a wall, bounces it off the top of a fruit cart, and lands next to Rey, who's just passed the guy on the bike. Te Hwan pulls up right alongside Monkey Girl's taxi to say something to Ambrose. Monkey Girl swings the wheel and rams into the red sports car.

That's the last straw for Ambrose, who slips out of the taxi's passenger side window and into the red sports car. "It's not you!" he calls to Monkey Girl. "It's your driving!" Aila follows him over, leading Te Hwan to growl, "Ferraris don't take 500 lb. werewolves!" Ambrose fidgets with something quick and says, "This one does."

The Leather-bondage Action Star pulls up on the other side to declare, "The map is evil. I need it." And the Ferrari's hood ornament becomes the monkey, which irritates Te Hwan rather a lot. And then the Technocracy calls Ambrose, who yells at them because really this is not his fault. Monkey Girl squirms up onto the roof and tries to grab his cell phone, chortling, "I want to talk to them!"

"A monkey wants to mock you," Ambrose bites off into the phone, then holds it up for her.

She sulks. "Now you ruined it." Then, looking around, she asks, "The bad guys have gone away. Why're we still driving fast?" Which is what Sonya would like to know. Having found her last straw, she whips out her cell phone and orders them all in the voice you don't like to hear out of a werewolf to get to a location she gives them and then talk like reasonable people.

They obey, and everybody gets themselves sorted out. Introductions: Monkey Girl is...well, sort of an Asian pooka thing. "Like the Monkey King?" Rey cheerfully asks. "Very much like," Te Hwan answers dolefully. Black leather assassin-man is a demon hunter. Both Monkey Girl and Te Hwan vouch for his reliability. Shih, as they call them, are moral and good as the day is long, but they're entirely human and rather easy to disembowel. And the shih and Te Hwan both admit that Monkey Girl is good at heart, if entirely irritating. The job of her kind, Te Hwan says, is to defend and guide humanity. Te Hwan, on the other hand...well, the shih and Monkey Girl both agree that she's decent people, but her dad (the man in the white suit) is one of those kuei-jin types, and while he personally is not particularly bad either, they tend to have unsavory associations with less virtuous kuei-jin and thus dangerous relics aren't necessarily safe in their hands.

After a fairly extended go-around, Ambrose finally settles the question by asking, "Which of you having this map would upset the bad guys the most?" They all have to agree that'd be the Monkey Girl. "What would you do with it if I gave it to you?" he asks her.

"I'd go into hiding till the heat died down and then use it to wreak havoc on Mikaboshi," she answers. Good answer. He pulls out the folded-up map and hands it to her.

But he's still got the digital copy on his laptop--well, his PDA, which is synced to his laptop. They need to do something about that. He starts to delete the file, but Monkey Girl stops him. "What happens to files when they're deleted?"

"Well," muses Ambrose, "the Virtual Adepts believe that they remain on the Digital Web. Of course, they also argue that simply knowing something makes it real, in which case..."

Instead of deleting the file, he moves the copy from his laptop over to his PDA so at least they only have one left to worry about, but he needs to talk to some Virtual Adepts before he does anything else with that. He's pretty sure it hasn't had any weird, dangerous effects on his computer, but it's best to check. When Aila suggests various ways of trashing his computer, he replies, "Magnets and sticks are two traditional enemies of computers. We've designed these with that in mind."

Aila talks to the demon hunter briefly, who gives her a business card: Ryoshi Takeda, P.I. Shoving a Humphrey Bogart costume onto Ambrose, Monkey Girl says, "Well, I guess this is so long," then swings off, chortling. Te Hwan promises she or her father will be in touch. Ambrose still owes them for that information she gave him, after all. You can tell how overjoyed he is about that.

Once everybody else clears out, Sonya tears into her pack for breaking the Veil. Against the Litany. Five times. In an hour. Aila and Jonas try to convince her that it was kinda awesome, though, but she doesn't think so. Really, really doesn't think so. Sonya is pissed. RF, the Philodox, doesn't say anything (as usual) but his glower implies he isn't especially thrilled either.

Ambrose's cell phone rings again. He checks the number (0), and doesn't answer--mainly to see what they'll do if he doesn't. As it turns out, they leave voice mails, wanting to know what exactly is going on. He ignores it, annoyed that they act like he owes them some kind of accounting.

Rey gives them another ride. After they drop Ambrose off at the chantry, the pack heads back to the caern to account for themselves. The sept has heard no word of any disturbance. Gotta give them this: the Technocracy does good work. The Elders ask, if they run into that monkey-girl again, to see what news they can get out of her about the Beast Courts. The rumor is that they're led by, of all things (and the Elder tries to be politic about this in an entirely failing way), honorable Shadow Lords. He needn't really have bothered, because Sonya doesn't mind; the Shadow Lords know what they are.

The chantry, on the other hand, has heard of the disturbance. After Ambrose gives them the run-down, he hunts up one of his VA acquaintances, who excitedly tells him about this 'haunted map' that's been doing the rounds via email in the last 24 hours. He describes something that rather resembles Ambrose's transit map. "They say if you open it, then in seven days you get sucked into a hell vortex!" He seems to think this is pretty cool. Doesn't quite believe it, but he plans to find out. From the way he talks, just about all of the Virtual Adepts have had a gander at this thing by now, and probably most of House Thig and a fair portion of the Etherites too.