Play@YSDC

Liz walks into the BSU Bar with Clay and looks around for some free seats, preferably somewhere they won't easily be overheard.

Greg walked into the BSU Bar next to Jacob and glanced around. The look on his face was that of being perplexed. They had found out some interesting information, but he just wasn't sure how it all fit together yet and if any of it had to do with the past events with the burning women. He said to Jacob, "Do you think the others are here yet?" as he scanned the crowd.

Here is Clay and Liz is next to him.
Jacob points to one of the sitting tables and leads the way.

"I'd like to get my hands on an external hard drive today," says Liz. "It should be possible to get one for less than a hundred quid, but that's still not small change for me. If we can't swing that, a USB flash drive will still hold something, but I'll have to pick and choose which files I copy and can't just grab the whole thing. On the other hand, it's a lot smaller and I can easily slip it into a pocket. Tonight Clay and I can see about getting access to the computer. That still leaves us the rest of today to do other things, though."

"I've already got some flash drives," Liz adds, "and I shouldn't have any problem finding an external hard drive I can borrow."

Greg asks, "So ... what else should we do? If this other professor has been incarcerated for selling artifacts, maybe we could question him at the jail and find out more about that... but I don't think he'd be inclined to speak to us considering he doesn't even know us. Not to mention, it might tip our hand to those who we'd rather remain off radar from."

"The money... follow the money," Greg muttered remembering some phrase from a detective show he watched once. "This guy took payment from someone probably. Maybe we can find out where the money came from in the bank records?"

"There's a thought," says Liz. "Was he arrested in Malta, or here?"

In Malta if I recall right.
Jacob replies
Should we take a flight to Malta and visit the dig site ?
Jacob add with a smile

"You'll be going without me" says Clay into his pint. "I cant afford to go to Malta."

"I'd be hard pressed to pay for my ticket," says Liz. "I spent most of my spare cash on my Paris holiday. I would like to go, but we should find out all we can here before we head to Malta."

Greg was considering footing the bill himself, but it would indeed be costly for an extended vacation for four to Malta. He suggested, "Maybe we can find out if any other excavation trips are planned in the near future and offer our services for more affordable tickets and such?"

Clay stands up Look at the others in turn. "Look, I better take a look at this place before tonight. I'll leave you brainiacs here to discuss what we do next." he pauses for a moment. "You don't think its going to turn out like the house do you? because I didn't really come prepared for that sort of thing"

"I bloody well hope not," says Liz with a shudder. She still has nightmares about fire sometimes. "This is a university's IT department, not the Tower of London. Still, there is the possibility that the killers might also be after the prof's computer. But how would they know where to find it?"

"if your not afraid to beat someone to death out in the open, then there are probably ways to get information which we might not consider" says Clay. "But perhaps its better to hope they've left matters at that"

Greg sighed, remembering the violent conclusion of his last trip there. He leaned in closer and spoke barely audible over the ambient noise, "Clay, you still have access to those handguns, right? I mean... if we need them, not like right now."

Clay smiles "Yeah I figured things might not be as finished as we hoped and we might want them again sometime, so yeah they're somewhere safe and out of the way"

"I'd have thought you'd have gotten rid of them," whispers Liz. "After all, they've been used. The fire prolly destroyed most of the evidence, but still...if we have to use them again, someone might connect it to that. Of course, if we have to use them again and we don't have them, that's the least of our worries. Should we bring them with tonight? If we're caught with them, it'll be worse than being caught without them, but it's best not to get caught in the first place."

Greg asked Liz, "Can you call up that video of the professor getting pummeled to death again? I want to consider if it's worth my while to take steps to protect myself from a band of blood-thirsty thugs."

"All right, point taken," says Liz. "We'll bring them."

Clay sits down with a sigh and looks at Greg, Liz and Jacob in turn. "Look guns like that, you know the sort you get no questions asked, well they ain't factory fresh. What we used them for, well it probably wasn't the first time they'd been used for that sort of thing or something like it. So now they're somewhere safe where no one but me knows ...and you if you want to know as well. As for tonight, I couldn't get back top them and back here in time for what we have planned. Frankly, if we see the same guys who did for the professor I'm not staying around to trade lead."

"Fair enough," says Liz. "We can do this without them. If that lot shows up, I'll bug out too. I'm in no mood to get killed or Liznapped."

Clay snorts at Liz's joke "Concrete proof that an expensive education does nothing to improve the sense of humour." Clay pauses as though working out the odds of meeting more like the tattoo artist. "Look if you guys don't have any other plans, why dont we all wander along to this IT place and see what it looks like." He pauses ...and if we're going to break into these offices how about taking a look at this profs house or flat or whatever.

Greg nodded, "Uh... what's that called... casing the joint, right? Yeah... sure. I won't know what the hell I'm looking for though. I can perhaps distract people if needed."

"Well the more eyes on the merrier, and the more we talk about them the more I worry about getting caught by these guys all on my Todd*" say Clay

*Todd short for Todd Sloan, Cockney slang for Alone.

"I'd like to come along to the IT department," says Liz. "I know what to look for there. One thing I want to keep an eye out for are CCTV cameras, as well as entrances. We can plan a route to avoid as many of those as possible, and if there any we can't bypass, I can use the same trick I did before. Unless something goes wrong, nobody should ever know we were there and nothing will be missing, so there shouldn't be any reason for anyone to review the footage before it gets recorded over. Of course, things do tend to go pear-shaped around us."

Off to IT Services - Go Here