1965-01-16 - Rats in the Kitchen IV
Summary: In which Kai and Reno do some surveillance and recon.
Related: If there are no related logs, put 'None', — please don't leave blank!
Theme Song: None
kai reno danny 


The King Rat's lair is actually a fairly unassuming and non-descript cinder block of a building just on the edge of Harlem. It has narrow windows and a high wall around it as well as security that is subtle, but present. The single driveway that leads in passes a guard hut where IDs are checked and cars are allowed to enter into an underground parking structure beneath the building. There is a main entrance at street level that one can walk to, but one has to pass the guard hut and drive to do so. It appears to be approximately four stories tall above the surface and is depressingly bland to look at.


Kai asides to Reno in a hushed tone, "Any chance you can see in the dark? Or turn into a bird and I can carry you? I can blow the lights, make it pitch black. They'd never see us, not even security cameras." He's dressed not in his usual beatnik black, but in dark charcoal grey. Dark grey blends in with the urban landscape better than black, anyway. There's a stocking cap to hide his radiant curls. They tend to stand out.


Reno rustled his feathers. Perching on Kai? Fun. Perching on Loki? Not fun! Kai? Kai was alright and wouldn't take him to meet primordial things so when kai asked him if he could see in teh dark there was an enthuastiic nod. Dark? Less of an issue. His beak picked at the sticking cap to pull down more over hte curls and the crow murmured, "It's cold. cover those better." Talk about mother hen syndrome. "I'll do a once around. When I land that means it's safe to move in." And off he flew just to give Kai some optimal advantage.


As he lifts up into the air and does a fly-by of the building, nobody blinks twice at the black bird against the night sky and fluttering amidst the streetlights. There are some flood lamps here and there that keep particular areas outside lit, but as he gets higher, he can see clearly in some of the windows as he flies by. Most of the rooms that he can see look typical of those of an office building. There are conference rooms and offices and hallways and rooms with filing cabinets in them, dark rooms that must be shut, and banks of elevators that can be seen as well as stairwells. When he reaches the roof, he can see that there is a kind of break-room set up there with a bbq and a couple of picnic tables, though they are currently covered with snow. There is an access door onto the roof there as well.

Eventually though, he would eventually return to Kai's shoulder, able to report to him whatever he had seen. Thus far, no one seems to have noticed them.


Kai nods to the bird, and he laughs a little as his hat is adjusted. No, no primordial things on Kai's watch. Instead, he eyeballs the the entrance and the guard hut. The trick is to put out the lights that can be written off as the bulbs blowing from age and use. Take out all the lights in the complex and they'll know something's up. So he's got his eye on that flood lamps. When Reno returns, he holds out an arm for the bird to perch on, and he asks quietly, "What news?"


Reno landed and tapped the top of Kai's head with his beak twice. Good elfie, keep that hat on! At what news Reno shifted back like an unfolded meat origami puzzle of feathers and impossibilities, The whisper was excited, "Man they got like a barbecue up there an' a table. We should get one for the top of our place. Ya know? Have like a lil gathering up there in the Summer?" FOCUS RENO!


Kai regards Reno blandly. "We'll have to have a party up there sometime," he says. "What about getting in?" He nods toward the flood lights and says, "If I knock those out, we could slip through in the dark. I can put out the guard hut, too, but I don't want it to look too obvious. Don't want them to supsect something's going on, dig? Once we get in, we'll take a look around, get out, and book it. Sound good?"


Reno blinked and ooooooohs quietly and quickly sorted out with hand gestures and all, "Yeah so there's like no one up there, and there's some guys over there and a bunch of rooms that like no one's in right now. LIghts off and all. But like if you start over there? That side ain't so bad though. The other side has those big bat signal thing only no bat on it soooooo I guess he's not comin with us." Well, it was an accurate assessment. The bright lights were at least obvious as they were on.


Kai thinks about this. "Can I get to these ill-lit areas?" he asks. He tweaks a wing feather lightly as he says, "Not all of us can fly, but I can climb all right." He continues to case the area. Ah, B&E. It brings him back to simpler times when if he needed something he just jacked it.


Reno folded and reperched and was tugged on. Ask!. hi. He blinked at Kai giving him complete attnetion now. Hullooo. He thought about this and nodded. "I'll fly around frond and jsut do like cute lil bird shit with my toes. You get to the important part. Go that way. It be like a playground for you." And with that he flew off towards the opposite side Kai was lookig to go. Yup, just a bird. and up up he went to circle nearby giving a CRAAAAAW! before going into a dive picking on some convenient mouse or something. Truth was: cause enough movement get attention. Just a bird doin bird stuff.


"Righto," Kai says, "Groovy." He slips around to the least well lit route, and when he gets toward the lights, he extends the sense of darkness within himself and *pop* goes the light, plunging the area into darkness. It'll seem like a busted bulb that could've happened for a number of reasons. Kai will be long gone before they try to make a determination anyway. The path leads him down into the parking structure. Pay no attention to the elf, just watch the birdie. Since he can see in the dark as if it were a hazy twilight, the lack of light is no skin off his nose.


Nobody seems to be paying any attention, either to the bird doing bird things, or Kai doing light things. In fact, the guard doesn't even look up from his paper that he's reading under his own dim bulb within the guard shed. Kai is able to get down into the parking structure without any problems and his ability to see in the dark makes it even easier to make out everything in the dimly lit structure. There are a few cars still parked there, several, some of which look like they may have been there for a while. There is a door that leads to a staircase and an elevator, but it appears to require some kind of a combination to be put in to open it.

Beyond, however, the elevator and the staircase don't appear to have keypads on them. So if one could get into that room, they could then ascend or descend as needed without requring to pass additional security — at least that far.


Reno continued to make a dive for what what actually passed as food for him. Damn. Missed. Reno was a pretty clean guy but as far as being a bird goes there was something said for rat on occasion he jsut could not explain. In the end he flew up to teh roof and took a listen and jsut tried that opening on the roof. Hey if he could let Kai in or get good infor from the top down to help sure, that's good yea?


Kai whips out a little notebook from his pocket and a stub of a pencil. He makes a quick sketch of the place. Nothing too fancy. He can't see well in darkness, but he can make vague shapes of cars and the squareness of the structure, where doors are, and so forth. He tucks the pad and stub away as he studies the door. These security pads are a pain, but he's traversed them before. The first thing he looks for are worn down pads that might've seen more use than others. Constant touching can sometimes fade the numbers on them. Either way, he tries combinations and listens for the mechanisms to fall into place when a button is touched.


|ROLL| Kai +rolls 1d20 for: 18


|ROLL| Reno +rolls 1d20 for: 16


Up on the roof, Reno is able to locate not only the door that leads inside which is, probably not surprisingly, not as well locked as the one that most people can walk to. It has a key lock but aside from that seems to hold no other protections. There is also the ventillation system though there are grates over those, probably to keep birds out. Go figure.

Down by the garage entrance, Kai can figure out the numbers on the keypad that appear to be most worn. There are only three of them, and though it takes him several minutes of trying combinations, he eventually gets a satisfying click, which is really quite remarkable all things considered. Lucky elf is lucky.


Reno looked and jiggled the handle. Okay ventilation ducts. There was a grating on there though and he scowled as much as a crow could trilling which translated to <*Mesh. My only weakness. How did they know!> He kicked at this and remembered he was also a dude. Oh yeah. He transformed andknelt on his toes to keep the footprints down, not that it looked well travelled, and treid to losten or lift it not expecting much in the way of results. Still recon was about finding out thwat is useful. To that extent he thought bout it and pulled some gun out, chewed it for a moment and stuck it to teh wrapped to make an impression of the bolt head for later. C'mon cold, do yo thing.


Kai takes out his notebook to jot down the code, and he slips inside, moving as quietly as he can. He makes sure the door opens freely from this side; it would be a tough thing to find out later he needs a code to get out. Then he heads for the stairs. Up he goes, one floor to listen at the door. He just wants to peek in to see what he can see, but only if there's no one around.


Up on the roof, Reno manages to make an impression of the bolts holding the grating on the ventilation system with his gum so that he knows exactly what sort of tool he might need to remove it upon return. Little raven toolbelt, amirite? The grate seems pretty firmly attached, but with the right tools, he could probably get it off easily.

Inside the building, Kai finds that he can get out without any problem. It's the getting in that seems the tricky part, and he's solved that problem. Moving up the stairs to the second floor landing, he can peer through the limited vision afforded a small square glass window in the door designed so one might be less likely to smack the person on the other side in the face. It opens into the stairwell and has another keypad in order to get onto the first floor. He can't hear anything though, on the other side, to indicate people moving about or talking. That does not mean that the floor is unoccupied, but no one seems to be by the door.


Reno gum had. He picked that up and stuffed it in pocket folding back tino a bird and making a mess of the snow to cover footprints making it look a bit more like a animal was just doing things, like crash landing or something, before taking off. He paused and got an idea. He flew back up to the guard poset out front and jsut perched on the thing like birds do. Birding. Nothing going on here. He was, trying to focus however, to see if he could grab psychometric impression of the guard tower to learn anything useful about who came and went or maybe how busy it might be.


Kai gives the keypad a 'you've got to be kidding me' look. He does the same trick he did before: he looks for worn keys, and as he pushes them, he listens for the telltale click of the mechanism inside. Sometimes one could feel it through the key if one knew what to pay attention to. While he works, he examines the door for overall strength and to see which side the hinge bolts are on, in case taking the whoel thing off ends up being the better option.


Up on the roof, Reno completes his messing up of the snow and comes to rest on the guard tower. The impressions that he gets are terribly monotonous but cery predictable. The shift changes are at the same time every day and it's usually the same several guards who take their shifts throughout the week, over and over, and over, and over. Very little of strong impression can be gathered. This place seems to be quiet and secure, but then, this is where the honchos meet and run things, not where the thugs and the people actually doing the dirty work are. The violence usually doesn't happen here. That much, Reno can make out easily enough, at least, not outside.

Kai fortunately tries the keypad with the original combination he used to get in and finds that it works. This seems more a deterrent to tailgaters than it is to those who know the code. So getting into the second floor and looking around isn't too hard. It looks like an office. There are office things. Phones, desks, typewriters, desks, mugs, and all that jazz. It's not a fancy office, but it seems about what one would expect.


Reno remained a look out and just perched chilling on the high points of the yard. The good news was his kin were prone to hanging out and looking swanky. He could do that all day ask any of the people down in Harlem and they'll agree the boy looked fine, damn fine. Ca-caw man. Caw. At least it accomplished getting a feel for the place, where literal tactile sense could give him an impression of traffic and usage, while Kai did the legwork. Lookout and spy was such a great duo. Feathers puffed up a bit before he stopped and caught himself. Don't preen man, it makes us look fluffy. Be coool. yeah , we got this.


Kai makes a note that the code is the same, and he sketches what he can see from the window of the stairwell, then up to the second floor to do the same. Stealthy elf peeks in when he can dare, but he wants to move quick so birb isn't waiting very long. He fills up his little notepad with sketches and works the lead on his stub of pencil down to the wood before he's done, though. Then he slips back downstairs, quiet as a mouse.


Able to ascend all four floors and even find the door that leads out onto the roof which does not have a keypad, just a keyed lock, Kai is able to make a fairly accurate sketch of the office building all except for the third flor. The third floor has a combination of a combination lock with a different code than the others, but also a keyed lock for which he does not have the key, and so is unable to get to that floor. From the tiny window, however, that floor appears to be more fortified and he has to be careful peering in the window, because directly across from the door and elevators there is a manned desk, and there are people there. There are two guards on duty as well as what appears to be a receptionist this late into the night. People occasionally walk down the hall and pass by and muffled voices can be heard, but not what they are talking about. If there was ever a likely place that was the hub of activity, that appears to be it.


Oh ho! Kay jots down notes about the third floor: fortified, keypad/keyed, manned. He also makes a note of the roof entrance before he goes back downstairs. On the way, he checks the fourth, second, and first floors for obvious signs of air ducts through which one might access the third floor, not to mention air vents on the third floor itself, inasmuch as he can catch in a quick glimpse. He books it away from there with a quickness. Getting caught would be bad.


All of the floors seem to have air vents and ductwork, though it's impossible to tell if there is anything that would block access to the third floor without actually climbing around in them, most likely. There are vents though, about typically sized, screwed-on grating in front of each.


The third floor needs air, Kai decides. Still, there are grates that could block access that'll need to be removed. He's not too concerned. There are few locks he can't break. Even the third floor he might've taken a crack at if not for the fact that people were present. Generally, anything meant to keep Kais out do not work on Kai, and that breeds a bit of confidence. A few more notes jotted. He rubs the stray graphite on his fingers onto his trousers. They're about the same color. Once he's done, he slips back out to the street to meet the crow. In and out, no fuss no muss.


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