By N.Barnes
Call Dir: Shadownet/ShadowlandsBBS/>
Select Region: Region=SanFrancisco>
Call SubDir: SanFrancisco/WeBlogs>
Select Blog: Author=V.Six>
Initializing…>
Entry 27: 22.08.70>
Just back from a track day and I can still smell the burnt rubber and gasoline. What a great day :o)
I suppose a word or two of explanation. First things first, we’re back in good old San Fran and all seems sweet. Kitty is as hot as ever and someone gave my apartment a new lick of paint to repair the damage done by the Triad before we smoothed things over with them. I’ve decided I’m never getting caught unawares again and Mal has very kindly fitted me out with the latest Betaware cyber leg – fully synthetic and realistic to look at and touch but with a nifty little cyber holster built in so I can keep a surprise or two to hand. Good kit.
In addition, while I was away I seem to have become Grasshopper or Old Father Time or something, invested with the wisdom of ages. Why? Because Kitty and I took a reunion cruise down the strip for race night yesterday and that punk Bumfluff came to me with his life story begging for my help.
For real. I mean this kid has got serious stones and vitamin Reality deficiency if he thinks getting his ass handed to him on the streets a few times in some way makes me his protector and mentor… However, we all know I’m really a soft touch and it can’t do my rep any harm – so I listen.
Seems Bumfluff fell foul of Seto’s gig the same way I did. There was a 100k bet down on a simple drag, Bumfluff felt certain he’d have the edge but as soon as things got underway experienced an few ‘technical’ troubles. Now Seto’s an ass and he’s pulling this shit on decent folks. I’d love to sock one to the smug fragger so Bumfluff has my attention but he ain’t done yakking. To try and rectify his first mistake, he made another. Trusted a nobody by the name of Grifter who offered him a suitcase full of Smack for 20 or 30 large. Figuring he can sell it on for enough dough to cover his debt to Seto, Bumfluff bit the scam. He then tries to sell the Smack to the local Vory Novacoke dealer, only to be told the Smack is hookey, ripped off from the Vory not 24 hours before. So now Bumfluff has a fat debt and some explaining to do to the Russian Mafia if he hopes to live out the day. I’m about ready to walk and let the knobhead swing but maybe just maybe we can help…
I bring in the team, Glyph, Ash and our infrequent tagalong Drifter.
Drifter’s worth his weight in gold and remembers that when we were down on our luck, Ash paid this Grifter dude who just scammed Bumfluff for a run to pick up a piece of art from a museum exhibition. We never did get around to that run and a little checking now proves Drifter right – Ash has also been scammed by Grifter.
Well, now it’s personal so we make moves to track Grifter down. Thanks to Daisy, it soon transpires that Grifter was responsible for doing over the Vory drug den and lifting the Novacoke. From our knowledge of Sickle and a couple of other brushes with the Vory we know they set a great store by personal honour so I make contact with the Dealer, Kier and offer a trade.
He lays off Bumfluff and we give him the little turd who raided his safe house. Kier’s a reasonable chap it seems. He’s happy with the trade, so we set a fake hard luck story circulating on Shadowlands BBS and set Drifter up as a honey trap – a down on his luck Runner looking for a quick, no questions asked buck. We strike gold, Drifter is invited to a meet and we set up a stake out and get ready to bust some heads. On Fly Spy I watch Drifter make contact at the meet. He’s joining a gang of Hispanics and Grifter for a raid on a poorly defended drug den. Drifter makes his excuses and leaves, somewhat smacked off his tits from the Blunt the Hispanics are toking and we hastily rearrange our hit.
Continues: 1/2>
|| >
It soon becomes apparent that Grifter and his new friends are about to turn over the same Vory drug den he struck gold at, just a few days ago. It’s too much of an opportunity to really impress Kier so we take our chances against the whole crew and make our move – Glyph and I run a little drive-by as the Hispanics make to bail out of their vehicles and they come blazing after us.
Grifter, loaded down with the cash the Hispanics put up to buy into the hit, decides he’s got what he wanted and pushes off pronto with Ash and Drifter in tow.
Up and down the hills of San Fran, Glyph and I have our fun, taunting the Hispanics, outburning their lowriders and trading shots. They get outdriven, outclassed and outgunned – it’s Glyph and her custom automatics and me with the turret mounted Ares Antioch against SMG firing hippies so high they can barely shoot straight. It’s no contest – like shooting fish in a barrel. I lay down smoke and flash bangs as a distraction, dropping them through the windows and into the vehicles where I can, while Glyph methodically works her way through the whole damn crew. You’d count to ten slower than we made two burning messes on the highway!
By the time we catch up with Ash, he’s already run Grifter off of the road.
Glyph and I pull up just in time to watch the show as Grifter’s tub goes over on its roof and crunches to a stop in front of us. While Ash has a one-to-one with our itinerant scammer, Glyph and Drifter retrieve the cash – a cool 50k for the Bumfluff benevolent fund – and I arrange to hand Grifter over to Kier.
Kier is good to his word and I warn Bumfluff to steer clear of the Vory in future. He’s been a knobhead this time but he’s smart enough to know what a close shave he’s had – he could have been sleeping with fishes at the bottom of the bay if the Russian Mafia got hold of him. We still have a problem though – Bumfluff needs another 50k for Seto, PDQ. Fortunately, this time, Ash has a cunning plan…
And that’s where the track day fits in. Ash, Glyph, Drifter and Bumfluff came with me down to the track. I laid down a marker time for the others and they tried to beat it. If ten seconds slower can be counted as beating me, then I guess I’m in trouble lol. Bumfluff came closest though – kid’s got some skills and that was all Ash needed to know. At his suggestion, Ash and I have put up 25k each to cover the rest of Bumfluff’s debt and now the Punk’s gonna race for us. He’ll race in the colours and livery we choose, so we can advertise some of Ash’ contacts, my Custom work etc and he’ll race when we tell him to race. That means he’ll either play wingman to me and watch my back out on the track or he’ll split his winnings with us, 60:40 in his favour with Ash and I take 20 per cent a pop until he’s quits with us.
Bumfluff’s fragging ecstatic and while I have my reservations, Ash is convinced that we can make this work…
Mood: High. I can still hear the NOS firing!
Ends: 2/2>
||
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Monday, December 18, 2006
August 2070 NPC update
Kier – Vory dealer in San Francisco.
Yutaka Seto – Yakuza Oyabans son who has Six's old car.
Bum Fluff – Young Street racer.
Grifter – Con-man. Preys on wannabe shadowrunners with deals that seem just a little too good to be true.
Han Tze – Lone Star undercover cop who has infiltrated the Seven Star triad gang.
Ka-Hil – An Ork recruiter for the secretive magical group that approached Ash.
Halifax – Physical adept and mentor to Ash.
Smith – Fixer the runners met in Atlanta.
Fu Hong – Ex-Seven Star lieutenant. He was captured by the shadowrunners as part of the Lone Star arrest for cash program. After being released he was incensed to discover that Kung Lok had given the runners clemency. After declaring a blood feud against the runners he was disowned by the Seven Stars.
Kung Lok – Seven Star Triad gang leader. Impressed by the way that the runners had out smarted his Lieutenants, has called off the vendetta against them and has offered some work for the future.
Yutaka Seto – Yakuza Oyabans son who has Six's old car.
Bum Fluff – Young Street racer.
Grifter – Con-man. Preys on wannabe shadowrunners with deals that seem just a little too good to be true.
Han Tze – Lone Star undercover cop who has infiltrated the Seven Star triad gang.
Ka-Hil – An Ork recruiter for the secretive magical group that approached Ash.
Halifax – Physical adept and mentor to Ash.
Smith – Fixer the runners met in Atlanta.
Fu Hong – Ex-Seven Star lieutenant. He was captured by the shadowrunners as part of the Lone Star arrest for cash program. After being released he was incensed to discover that Kung Lok had given the runners clemency. After declaring a blood feud against the runners he was disowned by the Seven Stars.
Kung Lok – Seven Star Triad gang leader. Impressed by the way that the runners had out smarted his Lieutenants, has called off the vendetta against them and has offered some work for the future.
The problem with Bum-Fluff
13th August 2070
Ash, Drifter, Glyph, Six
The runners were in Atlanta but they had little to stick around for, and once they had packed they drove the drive back home.
Six had put a call through to Mal, the Street Doc, a few days before to order a cyberleg, with a few customisations and made arrangements to head round and have his meat leg replaced with the better harder faster version.
Ash made some enquiries about having his strip of desert turned into some kind of racing strip, although the verbal quotes he was getting were quite steep.
Glyph got back to normal as soon as possible. Clearing up the mess that the Triads had left she got back to finishing the large bore quad barrelled gun she had started for Six.
21st August 2070
The young street racer called Bum Fluff had been on the circuit for a couple of years, a talented but inexperienced driver, he wiped out as many times as he won. He had entered a race for ¥100k, against the yakuza oyoban’s son Yutaka Seto and after some engine trouble, he lost. He didn’t have the money and had been given a time limit to come up with the cash. Desperate for some way to make some quick money, he was quick to snap up an offer of a suitcase full of nova-coke worth in excess of ¥200k on the streets for a fraction of the price from a mystery man called Grifter. Bum Fluff then sold the class A drugs to a Vory drug baron called Kier who paid in counterfeit credsticks. Which mean’ that Bum Fluff was still unable to pay off Yutaka Seto.
Kier then discovered that the drugs he had just bought from Bum Fluff, had in fact belonged to him all along and someone had knocked off his own drug den the night before. Kier was fuming and gave Bum Fluff an ultimatum, get him a suitcase full of Nova-coke by Friday or face the consequences. Seto was expecting his ¥100,000 by Friday also, and Bum Fluff was scared.
Bum Fluff had always looked up to Six, and begged him to help him. He didn’t have much to offer, only his car, and Six was less than impressed that Bum Fluff had come begging to him.
Leave him to fend for himself and he could wind up dead, and neither Six’s conscience or reputation could take that. Help him out, and Six would either end up out of pocket, or pissing off both the Vory and Yakuza of San Fran, or both. Six agreed to help.
Getting the other runners involved they talked over what had happened in the twisted web that Bum Fluff had woven and it seemed that the one man who they could do wit questioning was Grifter. Ash thought on about it, but Drifter was the one who remembered the name. Grifter sold Ash a Shadowrun to raid a museum when Ash was on a loosing streak, and at a bit of a low. Ash called the contact number for that run and after a brief chat to a man that was supposed to be German and wasn’t ended up speaking to tone.
The runners set about tracking down Grifter. His car had been seen at a bar, and the runners headed there, Daisy tracked down the city cameras to try and find the car and eventually found a piece of footage of Grifter running over a Vory guard and taking the drugs.
The runners decided to set up a honey trap to lure the elusive Grifter out. He seemed to prey on shadowrunners and criminal elements when they are down on their luck, so Drifter was set up as a runner touting for work. Daisy spread the word on message boards and before long Drifter was inundated with spam offers to make money quick. He spent many hours filtering through the spam before receiving a message from Grifter himself. They had a brief conversation and Grifter let him know that he could help him out of he comes down to a run down bit of San Fran for a meet.
The runners swung into action and surrounded the place with sniper cover and FRT while Drifter headed in to make a move. Drifter found himself in a smoking den owned by a group of hispanic gangers. A reefer was passed to Drifter and after a couple of tokes, it became a bit surreal.
Grifter rolled in after half an hour or so later and tried to squeeze some cash out of Drifter, he feigned that he had left his wallet elsewhere and Grifter lost interest in his new mark dismissing him to go and get some cash.
Drifter left, and Grifter led his new gang of mugs to a stash of drugs that was going to be lightly guarded. The Vory drug den again.
Six and Glyph in one car, Ash and a slightly stoned Drifter in Ash’s truck took up pursuit. They followed two lowriders and an Americar across town, and watched in horror as Grifter led his little gang back to the Vory house, Six and Glyph did a drive by to attract their attention and the gangers took the bait, chasing the runners up the hill, Ash followed Grifter who decided that there was too much lead flying about.
Six and Glyph dispatched their Lowriding gangers with a few well-placed grenades, and joined Ash to see him ramming the Americar off the road.
Grifter was dazed in the crash; the runners dragged him from the wreckage taking about ¥60k in cash. They contacted the Vory baron, Kier to be told that he wanted Grifter bringing to a secluded location so that he could have a long chat with him. And the runners duly obliged as long as Bum Fluff was let off, after all he had his drugs back, and although neither made the point, the drugs were paid with counterfeit money anyway.
The runners then had the other problem. To pay off Seto, they would need to give Bum Fluff the 60k they had just taken, and still have to pay in 40k of their own money. Ash suggested that they take Bum Fluff onto the payroll; his earnings on the strip get split between the investors. Six wanted to see how good the kid really was, so arranged to spend an afternoon on a track day in his car. Everyone had a go to try and post a time. Six put down the benchmark, and all the runners were about 10 seconds off the pace. Bum Fluff was fast, better than the other runners, not as good as Six, and Six was satisfied enough to put his money alongside Ash’s on the kid.
Ash, Drifter, Glyph, Six
The runners were in Atlanta but they had little to stick around for, and once they had packed they drove the drive back home.
Six had put a call through to Mal, the Street Doc, a few days before to order a cyberleg, with a few customisations and made arrangements to head round and have his meat leg replaced with the better harder faster version.
Ash made some enquiries about having his strip of desert turned into some kind of racing strip, although the verbal quotes he was getting were quite steep.
Glyph got back to normal as soon as possible. Clearing up the mess that the Triads had left she got back to finishing the large bore quad barrelled gun she had started for Six.
21st August 2070
The young street racer called Bum Fluff had been on the circuit for a couple of years, a talented but inexperienced driver, he wiped out as many times as he won. He had entered a race for ¥100k, against the yakuza oyoban’s son Yutaka Seto and after some engine trouble, he lost. He didn’t have the money and had been given a time limit to come up with the cash. Desperate for some way to make some quick money, he was quick to snap up an offer of a suitcase full of nova-coke worth in excess of ¥200k on the streets for a fraction of the price from a mystery man called Grifter. Bum Fluff then sold the class A drugs to a Vory drug baron called Kier who paid in counterfeit credsticks. Which mean’ that Bum Fluff was still unable to pay off Yutaka Seto.
Kier then discovered that the drugs he had just bought from Bum Fluff, had in fact belonged to him all along and someone had knocked off his own drug den the night before. Kier was fuming and gave Bum Fluff an ultimatum, get him a suitcase full of Nova-coke by Friday or face the consequences. Seto was expecting his ¥100,000 by Friday also, and Bum Fluff was scared.
Bum Fluff had always looked up to Six, and begged him to help him. He didn’t have much to offer, only his car, and Six was less than impressed that Bum Fluff had come begging to him.
Leave him to fend for himself and he could wind up dead, and neither Six’s conscience or reputation could take that. Help him out, and Six would either end up out of pocket, or pissing off both the Vory and Yakuza of San Fran, or both. Six agreed to help.
Getting the other runners involved they talked over what had happened in the twisted web that Bum Fluff had woven and it seemed that the one man who they could do wit questioning was Grifter. Ash thought on about it, but Drifter was the one who remembered the name. Grifter sold Ash a Shadowrun to raid a museum when Ash was on a loosing streak, and at a bit of a low. Ash called the contact number for that run and after a brief chat to a man that was supposed to be German and wasn’t ended up speaking to tone.
The runners set about tracking down Grifter. His car had been seen at a bar, and the runners headed there, Daisy tracked down the city cameras to try and find the car and eventually found a piece of footage of Grifter running over a Vory guard and taking the drugs.
The runners decided to set up a honey trap to lure the elusive Grifter out. He seemed to prey on shadowrunners and criminal elements when they are down on their luck, so Drifter was set up as a runner touting for work. Daisy spread the word on message boards and before long Drifter was inundated with spam offers to make money quick. He spent many hours filtering through the spam before receiving a message from Grifter himself. They had a brief conversation and Grifter let him know that he could help him out of he comes down to a run down bit of San Fran for a meet.
The runners swung into action and surrounded the place with sniper cover and FRT while Drifter headed in to make a move. Drifter found himself in a smoking den owned by a group of hispanic gangers. A reefer was passed to Drifter and after a couple of tokes, it became a bit surreal.
Grifter rolled in after half an hour or so later and tried to squeeze some cash out of Drifter, he feigned that he had left his wallet elsewhere and Grifter lost interest in his new mark dismissing him to go and get some cash.
Drifter left, and Grifter led his new gang of mugs to a stash of drugs that was going to be lightly guarded. The Vory drug den again.
Six and Glyph in one car, Ash and a slightly stoned Drifter in Ash’s truck took up pursuit. They followed two lowriders and an Americar across town, and watched in horror as Grifter led his little gang back to the Vory house, Six and Glyph did a drive by to attract their attention and the gangers took the bait, chasing the runners up the hill, Ash followed Grifter who decided that there was too much lead flying about.
Six and Glyph dispatched their Lowriding gangers with a few well-placed grenades, and joined Ash to see him ramming the Americar off the road.
Grifter was dazed in the crash; the runners dragged him from the wreckage taking about ¥60k in cash. They contacted the Vory baron, Kier to be told that he wanted Grifter bringing to a secluded location so that he could have a long chat with him. And the runners duly obliged as long as Bum Fluff was let off, after all he had his drugs back, and although neither made the point, the drugs were paid with counterfeit money anyway.
The runners then had the other problem. To pay off Seto, they would need to give Bum Fluff the 60k they had just taken, and still have to pay in 40k of their own money. Ash suggested that they take Bum Fluff onto the payroll; his earnings on the strip get split between the investors. Six wanted to see how good the kid really was, so arranged to spend an afternoon on a track day in his car. Everyone had a go to try and post a time. Six put down the benchmark, and all the runners were about 10 seconds off the pace. Bum Fluff was fast, better than the other runners, not as good as Six, and Six was satisfied enough to put his money alongside Ash’s on the kid.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Six's Blog.
By N.Barnes
Call Dir: Shadownet/ShadowlandsBBS/>
Select Region: Region=SanFrancisco>
Call SubDir: SanFrancisco/WeBlogs>
Select Blog: Author=V.Six>
Initializing…>
Entry 26: 12.08.70>
I knew Chuckles was going to be trouble… How much trouble? How about persuading Ash to bail out mid-run, trouble. Yes, that much trouble. I’m fragging fuming, not least because I had to put my ass on the line to pull Chumpzilla’s fat out of the fire afterwards too.
The day started well. I had a call from Nunzio who had negotiated a deal for us with the Seven Stars Triad. They respected our effectiveness at bypassing their security to take their boys in and collect the Lone Star bounty and understood that it was just a job, nothing personal. However, they needed to save face and that meant reparations had to be made. The Triad Head Honcho said that for 30k, all sins could be forgiven and we’d be free to return home. As an added sweetener, Kung Lok threw in a warning and a sop to our ego. The sop? That our skill and success rate had not gone unnoticed and the Triad might be interested in employing us at a future date. The warning?
That restaurant owner Fu Hong had disagreed with the Triad’s upper echelons about letting us off so lightly and been thrown out on his ear after swearing a blood oath against us. Glyph and Ash agreed to chuck in 10k a pop with me to settle up so that we could go home and Nunzio agreed to facilitate the deal.
Before we could even think of packing up and leaving Atlanta, Ash took a call from a local fixer called Smith – the fruit of his efforts at contact development and relationship building. Smith offered to put us in touch with a Corp Johnson who was looking to employ a team. I liked the idea of having a fixer on side here in Atlanta and a bit of a rep – if we could cultivate both San Fran and Atlanta it meant we could switch between patches and would always be able to use the other as a bolt hole. Glyph agreed it was worth trying to make a spot more money before we left and we let Ash make the connections.
We met Smith and then the Johnson at a hotel downtown. The introductions from Smith were costing us ten percent and though both Ash and I considered this money well spent, Glyph had her reservations. Johnson represented Future Concepts, an R&D company who had signed a deal to head hunt a research scientist by the name of Dr Lawrence Callahan from Mitsuhama.
Callahan had never shown up for work and Future Concepts wanted their employee delivering to them. Wrangles about cash, golden handshakes and contingency payments aside, it all seemed fairly straightforward and we happily took the gig on.
Straight to the horse’s mouth, I decided to check whether Callahan was contactable through his former employer or not and after playing the hold game with a series of switchboard monkeys I was surprised to be put straight through to our quarry. Callahan claimed to have changed his mind and rebuffed me fairly quickly and left us with any number of conspiracy theories running through our heads. Had he feigned interest in Future Concepts to carry out some sort of industrial espionage? Were Mitsuhama holding him against his will? Did they have some sort of leverage over him?
Ultimately, the whys and wherefores were unimportant, our job was simply to deliver Callahan to Future Concepts, but at least we now knew where to find the good Doctor and what we would be up against in order to extract him successfully.
A recce of Callahan’s old apartment turned up little other than the telephone number of Flick Stevens, a co-worker who claimed to know nothing of Callahan’s whereabouts or contract with Future Concepts so we blazed to Mitsuhama where we had our first unpleasant surprise.
Continues: 1/3>
|| >
Mitsuhama is one of the Big Ten – the world’s largest corporations and that grants them extraterritoriality, the right to claim their buildings and compounds as sovereign land, exempt from the laws of the country and subject to laws set by the corporation itself. You can expect those laws to be stacked in the corporation’s favour and get short shrift and no assistance if you should happen to cross them. Knowing this, we gave the Mitsuhama compound a wide berth and set up surveillance in the hills overlooking it from the north. The compound covers roughly a square mile of territory, ringed by a double fence and houses five separate buildings. A quick hackette from Daisy was able to identify the building where Callahan worked and the accommodation block housing his apartment but even so, we faced a tough infiltration if we were going to get into the compound.
Glyph snuck down to within 500 metres of the exterior fence and was spotted, attracting the unwanted attention of a dog team. I expected to be picked up instantly over corporate air space but with little other option I sent the Fly Spy down into the compound and began to worm my way through to Callahan’s apartment.
It was then we got our next surprise. An announcement from Ash that he had to go meet someone and would be leaving us for an hour. He tried to use the fact that we were settling down to do some surveillance as an excuse to bail, claiming it didn’t need all three of us to watch the compound. He was right of course, but leaving us still sucked and I damn well told him so.
What if an opportunity to snatch the good Doctor presented itself? How could he help us if he was having a beer and a chinwag miles away? It all harked back to the bad old days, when Ono was captured by the Notable Anarchists.
It was asking for trouble but Ash was resolute. As it turned out, he was gone for much longer than an hour and would have cause to regret his decision before the end of the night.
Glyph and I debated entry methods until nightfall and then in the darkness, we spotted approaching headlights. A two-man security team had come to sweep the area and I instantly realised the control feed for the Fly Spy could have been detected and traced. Killing the signal we slipped away, then took the opportunity to circle around, break into the Mitsuhama security van and stow away in the back. They carried us right into the heart of the compound without so much as a harsh word. Talk about providence!
From their own garage, we hot-wired the van and used it to move unnoticed around the compound. Across at Callahan’s accommodation block, we aped a maintenance team and slipped unseen up the fire escape. As we climbed, all hell broke loose. Dogs were barking, security klaxon’s began blaring and shots were fired. Below us, we saw Ash sprinting across the compound like a fun-runner at the New York marathon. Knobhead. We had no idea how he’d gotten in but he clearly hadn’t been as savvy as us about it. We had a hurried conversation but there was no alternative, Ash was providing the perfect distraction and we had to capitalise on it. Helping him would jeopardise the entire run and all of our lives. He had made his bed, we had to let him lie in it. It was hard. Damn hard. Whatever those bastards were doing to Ash, it was making the poor fragger scream like a bitch. I think I had a little coming of age on that fire escape. I had no alternative but to harden my heart to those screams and the only thing that gave me any comfort was the thought that if he’d stuck with us, it would all have been fine.
These were the consequences of his own decisions, made at his own volition and he’d have to deal with them… Damn I sound like Ki-rinn but that’s all there was to it.
In Callahan’s room we found his lover Flick Stevens. I was shocked that the little bitch had lied to me with such aplomb and put a Stick-Shock in her to keep her compliant. When Callahan arrived and saw our hostage, he had little alternative but to cooperate. Ash had stirred up a hornet’s nest at the rear of the accommodation and that meant sucking it up and walking bold as brass, right out of the front door.
Continues: 2/3>
|| >
We got back to the van without any hassle and made our way down to the gates. As we approached, there was clearly a lockdown in effect – again, a legacy of Ash’s stupidity – and we had to think fast. Glyph surrendered one of her weapon projects but the grenades wouldn’t fire for me. Typical! I stamped on the gas, roaring towards the outer gate and Glyph took matters in her own hands, shooting the windshield out and then pinging a grenade off of the fencing. We roared toward the explosion just preying the gates would be weakened enough for a ramming and we got a lucky break smashing our way out on to the open road.
As Glyph strip searched Callahan and Stevens for RFID security and stealth tags, I played logistical Kerplunk with the security van, my car and Ash’
pick up. With the FN-Har in the back of the Dodge, I downed a tree so that it fell across the road behind us. We then ditched the van and all possible tags, switching into the pick-up before returning to Atlanta. Once in Atlanta, Glyph and I split again. She took Callahan to see Johnson and collect our pay while I took Stevens to negotiate a hostage exchange for Ash and managed to evade pursuit.
My heart was in my throat for the next couple of hours. I’ve never played spy before and I didn’t really know what I was doing. First I made contact with the head of R&D at Mitsuhama – Stevens’ and Callahan’s boss. I told him I had Stevens and gave him 15 minutes to ascertain if Ash was alive. Then I moved on, changing location and phone so they couldn’t track or trace me. On the second call, I offered a prisoner swap and gave them time to prep Ash for transport. It was then I broke the news to Daisy and with her help selected a suitable location for the exchange. On the third call, I gave my instructions, timing it so that Mitsuhama had time to get to the meet but little time for any dirty tricks. They’re a Corp for frag’s sake. I was expecting them to double cross me. I knew it would go wrong somewhere on down the line but I had to secure Ash’ freedom and just did what I could to protect myself. Tense? Check my pants…
At the appointed time, Stevens’ boss pulled up at the appointed place and we made the exchange. Ash got halfway to the car before Mitsuhama hit me with the double-cross. Ash was strapped with a TNT waistcoat and unless I sold my employer down the river it was goodnight good buddy. I made a quick call to Glyph on my other PAN to get her to explain to Johnson that Ash had been captured and there was a risk his PAN had been hacked for sensitive info. It was a feasible story that I figured would cover our asses and explain to Johnson how he had been compromised without actually souring our relationship or deal. And then a weird thing happened. I trusted the Corp. I mean, I had nothing to lose, Ash was dead if I didn’t co-operate and I suspected they’d betray me and kill him even if I did co-operate so all I could do was train the FN-Har on their car, whisper a silent promise that if he died, they’d all die too, and trust them. I gave them half of Johnson’s phone number and made them take the explosives off of Ash. With him walking toward the car, I gave them the rest of the number. I steeled myself for the gunfire, the sniper shot, the explosion. Nothing. They got back in their vehicle and drove away. The Corp dealt with me on equal footing. We negotiated and for the first time in my short career, I got what I wanted and the Corp got what they wanted. Colour me surprised… and relieved!
There was still every chance Ash was tagged so we hooked back up with his pick up and gear and he scanned himself for RFID transmitters before we blazed back over to Glyph’s location to help fight off the imminent arrival of Mitsuhama’s Snatch Back Squad. We were too late. Glyph was covering the doorway with smoking guns and two corpses, still warm, were slumped behind her near the unconscious Dr Callahan. Forewarned by Glyph, Johnson arrived in short order to collect the Doc and paid his dues. Job done. We blazed.
We still have issues. Mitsuhama may not let sleeping dogs lie and Ash needs to decide on his priorities. It’s either Chuckles or us and the job, especially when we’re mid-job, but for now we can breathe a sigh of relief and head home. Apologies have been made and the air between us cleared.
We’ll see if it sours in future.
Mood: Tense.
Ends: 3/3>
||
Call Dir: Shadownet/ShadowlandsBBS/>
Select Region: Region=SanFrancisco>
Call SubDir: SanFrancisco/WeBlogs>
Select Blog: Author=V.Six>
Initializing…>
Entry 26: 12.08.70>
I knew Chuckles was going to be trouble… How much trouble? How about persuading Ash to bail out mid-run, trouble. Yes, that much trouble. I’m fragging fuming, not least because I had to put my ass on the line to pull Chumpzilla’s fat out of the fire afterwards too.
The day started well. I had a call from Nunzio who had negotiated a deal for us with the Seven Stars Triad. They respected our effectiveness at bypassing their security to take their boys in and collect the Lone Star bounty and understood that it was just a job, nothing personal. However, they needed to save face and that meant reparations had to be made. The Triad Head Honcho said that for 30k, all sins could be forgiven and we’d be free to return home. As an added sweetener, Kung Lok threw in a warning and a sop to our ego. The sop? That our skill and success rate had not gone unnoticed and the Triad might be interested in employing us at a future date. The warning?
That restaurant owner Fu Hong had disagreed with the Triad’s upper echelons about letting us off so lightly and been thrown out on his ear after swearing a blood oath against us. Glyph and Ash agreed to chuck in 10k a pop with me to settle up so that we could go home and Nunzio agreed to facilitate the deal.
Before we could even think of packing up and leaving Atlanta, Ash took a call from a local fixer called Smith – the fruit of his efforts at contact development and relationship building. Smith offered to put us in touch with a Corp Johnson who was looking to employ a team. I liked the idea of having a fixer on side here in Atlanta and a bit of a rep – if we could cultivate both San Fran and Atlanta it meant we could switch between patches and would always be able to use the other as a bolt hole. Glyph agreed it was worth trying to make a spot more money before we left and we let Ash make the connections.
We met Smith and then the Johnson at a hotel downtown. The introductions from Smith were costing us ten percent and though both Ash and I considered this money well spent, Glyph had her reservations. Johnson represented Future Concepts, an R&D company who had signed a deal to head hunt a research scientist by the name of Dr Lawrence Callahan from Mitsuhama.
Callahan had never shown up for work and Future Concepts wanted their employee delivering to them. Wrangles about cash, golden handshakes and contingency payments aside, it all seemed fairly straightforward and we happily took the gig on.
Straight to the horse’s mouth, I decided to check whether Callahan was contactable through his former employer or not and after playing the hold game with a series of switchboard monkeys I was surprised to be put straight through to our quarry. Callahan claimed to have changed his mind and rebuffed me fairly quickly and left us with any number of conspiracy theories running through our heads. Had he feigned interest in Future Concepts to carry out some sort of industrial espionage? Were Mitsuhama holding him against his will? Did they have some sort of leverage over him?
Ultimately, the whys and wherefores were unimportant, our job was simply to deliver Callahan to Future Concepts, but at least we now knew where to find the good Doctor and what we would be up against in order to extract him successfully.
A recce of Callahan’s old apartment turned up little other than the telephone number of Flick Stevens, a co-worker who claimed to know nothing of Callahan’s whereabouts or contract with Future Concepts so we blazed to Mitsuhama where we had our first unpleasant surprise.
Continues: 1/3>
|| >
Mitsuhama is one of the Big Ten – the world’s largest corporations and that grants them extraterritoriality, the right to claim their buildings and compounds as sovereign land, exempt from the laws of the country and subject to laws set by the corporation itself. You can expect those laws to be stacked in the corporation’s favour and get short shrift and no assistance if you should happen to cross them. Knowing this, we gave the Mitsuhama compound a wide berth and set up surveillance in the hills overlooking it from the north. The compound covers roughly a square mile of territory, ringed by a double fence and houses five separate buildings. A quick hackette from Daisy was able to identify the building where Callahan worked and the accommodation block housing his apartment but even so, we faced a tough infiltration if we were going to get into the compound.
Glyph snuck down to within 500 metres of the exterior fence and was spotted, attracting the unwanted attention of a dog team. I expected to be picked up instantly over corporate air space but with little other option I sent the Fly Spy down into the compound and began to worm my way through to Callahan’s apartment.
It was then we got our next surprise. An announcement from Ash that he had to go meet someone and would be leaving us for an hour. He tried to use the fact that we were settling down to do some surveillance as an excuse to bail, claiming it didn’t need all three of us to watch the compound. He was right of course, but leaving us still sucked and I damn well told him so.
What if an opportunity to snatch the good Doctor presented itself? How could he help us if he was having a beer and a chinwag miles away? It all harked back to the bad old days, when Ono was captured by the Notable Anarchists.
It was asking for trouble but Ash was resolute. As it turned out, he was gone for much longer than an hour and would have cause to regret his decision before the end of the night.
Glyph and I debated entry methods until nightfall and then in the darkness, we spotted approaching headlights. A two-man security team had come to sweep the area and I instantly realised the control feed for the Fly Spy could have been detected and traced. Killing the signal we slipped away, then took the opportunity to circle around, break into the Mitsuhama security van and stow away in the back. They carried us right into the heart of the compound without so much as a harsh word. Talk about providence!
From their own garage, we hot-wired the van and used it to move unnoticed around the compound. Across at Callahan’s accommodation block, we aped a maintenance team and slipped unseen up the fire escape. As we climbed, all hell broke loose. Dogs were barking, security klaxon’s began blaring and shots were fired. Below us, we saw Ash sprinting across the compound like a fun-runner at the New York marathon. Knobhead. We had no idea how he’d gotten in but he clearly hadn’t been as savvy as us about it. We had a hurried conversation but there was no alternative, Ash was providing the perfect distraction and we had to capitalise on it. Helping him would jeopardise the entire run and all of our lives. He had made his bed, we had to let him lie in it. It was hard. Damn hard. Whatever those bastards were doing to Ash, it was making the poor fragger scream like a bitch. I think I had a little coming of age on that fire escape. I had no alternative but to harden my heart to those screams and the only thing that gave me any comfort was the thought that if he’d stuck with us, it would all have been fine.
These were the consequences of his own decisions, made at his own volition and he’d have to deal with them… Damn I sound like Ki-rinn but that’s all there was to it.
In Callahan’s room we found his lover Flick Stevens. I was shocked that the little bitch had lied to me with such aplomb and put a Stick-Shock in her to keep her compliant. When Callahan arrived and saw our hostage, he had little alternative but to cooperate. Ash had stirred up a hornet’s nest at the rear of the accommodation and that meant sucking it up and walking bold as brass, right out of the front door.
Continues: 2/3>
|| >
We got back to the van without any hassle and made our way down to the gates. As we approached, there was clearly a lockdown in effect – again, a legacy of Ash’s stupidity – and we had to think fast. Glyph surrendered one of her weapon projects but the grenades wouldn’t fire for me. Typical! I stamped on the gas, roaring towards the outer gate and Glyph took matters in her own hands, shooting the windshield out and then pinging a grenade off of the fencing. We roared toward the explosion just preying the gates would be weakened enough for a ramming and we got a lucky break smashing our way out on to the open road.
As Glyph strip searched Callahan and Stevens for RFID security and stealth tags, I played logistical Kerplunk with the security van, my car and Ash’
pick up. With the FN-Har in the back of the Dodge, I downed a tree so that it fell across the road behind us. We then ditched the van and all possible tags, switching into the pick-up before returning to Atlanta. Once in Atlanta, Glyph and I split again. She took Callahan to see Johnson and collect our pay while I took Stevens to negotiate a hostage exchange for Ash and managed to evade pursuit.
My heart was in my throat for the next couple of hours. I’ve never played spy before and I didn’t really know what I was doing. First I made contact with the head of R&D at Mitsuhama – Stevens’ and Callahan’s boss. I told him I had Stevens and gave him 15 minutes to ascertain if Ash was alive. Then I moved on, changing location and phone so they couldn’t track or trace me. On the second call, I offered a prisoner swap and gave them time to prep Ash for transport. It was then I broke the news to Daisy and with her help selected a suitable location for the exchange. On the third call, I gave my instructions, timing it so that Mitsuhama had time to get to the meet but little time for any dirty tricks. They’re a Corp for frag’s sake. I was expecting them to double cross me. I knew it would go wrong somewhere on down the line but I had to secure Ash’ freedom and just did what I could to protect myself. Tense? Check my pants…
At the appointed time, Stevens’ boss pulled up at the appointed place and we made the exchange. Ash got halfway to the car before Mitsuhama hit me with the double-cross. Ash was strapped with a TNT waistcoat and unless I sold my employer down the river it was goodnight good buddy. I made a quick call to Glyph on my other PAN to get her to explain to Johnson that Ash had been captured and there was a risk his PAN had been hacked for sensitive info. It was a feasible story that I figured would cover our asses and explain to Johnson how he had been compromised without actually souring our relationship or deal. And then a weird thing happened. I trusted the Corp. I mean, I had nothing to lose, Ash was dead if I didn’t co-operate and I suspected they’d betray me and kill him even if I did co-operate so all I could do was train the FN-Har on their car, whisper a silent promise that if he died, they’d all die too, and trust them. I gave them half of Johnson’s phone number and made them take the explosives off of Ash. With him walking toward the car, I gave them the rest of the number. I steeled myself for the gunfire, the sniper shot, the explosion. Nothing. They got back in their vehicle and drove away. The Corp dealt with me on equal footing. We negotiated and for the first time in my short career, I got what I wanted and the Corp got what they wanted. Colour me surprised… and relieved!
There was still every chance Ash was tagged so we hooked back up with his pick up and gear and he scanned himself for RFID transmitters before we blazed back over to Glyph’s location to help fight off the imminent arrival of Mitsuhama’s Snatch Back Squad. We were too late. Glyph was covering the doorway with smoking guns and two corpses, still warm, were slumped behind her near the unconscious Dr Callahan. Forewarned by Glyph, Johnson arrived in short order to collect the Doc and paid his dues. Job done. We blazed.
We still have issues. Mitsuhama may not let sleeping dogs lie and Ash needs to decide on his priorities. It’s either Chuckles or us and the job, especially when we’re mid-job, but for now we can breathe a sigh of relief and head home. Apologies have been made and the air between us cleared.
We’ll see if it sours in future.
Mood: Tense.
Ends: 3/3>
||
Monday, December 11, 2006
Mitsuhama assault
Sunday 12th August 2070
Ash, Glyph, Six.
Nunzio contacted six. He had been working hard behind the scenes with the Triads to bring an end to this feud that they had with his little brother. Nunzio put a call through from the Triad gang leader, Kung Lok.
Kung Lok told Six that he was not happy with the disrespect the runners had show to the Seven Star Triad family, but that he understood why they had taken the Lone Star bounties. He offered Six a deal. 30k payment as a show of deference and Kung Lok would end the attacks on the runners. Six accepted, and the triad leader also hinted that their effectiveness didn’t go unnoticed and that work may come their way in the future.
Meanwhile Smith contacted Ash again, the fixer he had made contact with a week or so ago. Smith told him that there was the prospect of a job available and if the runners were interested to meet at the McMurray Grand hotel.
They were, although they had the chance to head back home, they fancied one last job in Atlanta. It may open up possibilities to make a few more contacts outside San Fran and may provide a familiar bolthole to retreat to in the future.
The runners met the fixer at the hotel and he took them through to the bar to explain the deal. Rather than get his fingers burned with runners he doesn’t know, he offered to pass the runners to the Johnson directly. That way his rep wouldn’t suffer so badly if things went wrong for the team. He asked that he took a 10% cut of their final pay. A finder’s fee for linking the runners up with the job. They accepted and they headed to a hotel suite where the Mr. Johnson waited.
The job was simple, a simple search and retrieval of a doctor who failed to turn up for work, he job was coming from Future Concepts a corporation who poached the best scientists, innovated the next big thing, and then sold the ideas back to the bigger corporations. They had been approached by a Dr. Lawrence Calahan who wanted to move from Mitsuhama and they gave him a contract. Only, a week after he was due to start work, he never showed. They accepted the job, but Glyph quibbled on the pricing structure between the Johnson, the Fixer, and the three of them. Wanting to make friends and influence people in Atlanta, Six took Glyph to one side, and Ash closed the deal with no more arguments.
Settling down in the bar area with all of the information to hand, the runners planned their moves. Six called Mitsuhama to see if Dr. Calahan was still working for them. After getting passed through the switchboard system he eventually spoke with the man they were after. Six briefly mentioned the job at Future Concepts Calahan dismissed it and said that he no longer wanted to work for FC.
Ash contacted the Johnson again, who was only mildly surprised that he was still working at Mitushama, as far as he was concerned the job was still on, and the runners agreed. Glyph again quibbled that the remit had changed and they should try to squeeze more money out of the Johnson. Six and Ash ignored her.
The runners pulled down some information about the Mitsuhama complex, and found that it was a sprawling self contained corporate enclave with housing and working requirements fulfilled in the 1 mile x half a mile extraterritorial portion of the CAS. Surveillance was in order, but first the runners wanted to get together some equipment and visit his old flat.
His old flat was empty. Cleared out of all personal effects. The runners hunted around and found little. A few scraps of paper with some phone numbers jotted down. Six called one of the phone numbers and seemed to turn up a colleague of his. But otherwise they found nothing.
The runners then headed to the Mitsuhama complex. Ash and Glyph parked up and took up observations about a mile away, Six drove on and parked the car on the road, just in case they needed options. And then they sat and watched. Glyph had to abort a closer inspection because guards spotted her, so Six then sent his fly-spy drone in for a look.
Meanwhile Ash took a call from Ka-Hil. He wanted to meet up with Ash to discuss the magical group. Ash was torn, he was desperate to further his relationship with this mysterious magical group, but at the same time didn’t want to leave the job part way through. Six didn’t make it any easier when Ash told them that he was off. Ash took the truck and headed back into Atlanta. Glyph and Six sat on a log watching the complex. It started to rain.
Hours passed, Six had managed to get his Flyspy drone into Dr. Calahan’s apartment and the two runners sat and waited. A van pulled up nearby. It was still raining and it was dark but they could see that Mitsuhama security also performed sweeps of the local countryside if prompted by something. Six realised that his Drone link could be giving them away and killed the connection. They then moved off.
Thinking quickly, they then moved back toward the van. They disabled the alarm and slipped into the back while the two security men performed their sweep. They sat quietly and then were driven straight into the heavily guarded complex unseen, with not a shot fired.
Ash spent 3 hours talking to Ka-Hil. He explained the magical group, he told him the practices, and he told Ash that he would need to choose an adepts way. Ash had a tough decision regarding the way he wanted his training to be focused but eventually chose the Invisible Way. Ka-Hil nodded his agreement with the choice and told Ash that he would get a chance to meet up with his mentor soon.
Ash then blazed back to his friends outside Mitsuhama. Only they were no longer outside Mitsuhama. Ash got worried. He could see that another vehicle had pulled up, and he could see that people had gotten into the back of the van, and Ash feared that his friends had been taken prisoner.
Meanwhile Glyph and Six were sneaking around inside the complex. They had taken one of the vans and were presently making their way up a fire escape into Calahan’s living block.
Ash made a rash move. He snuck down the hill to the main security fence and cut his way through. Then after crawling through the gap he had cut he saw that a guard dog had spotted him even if the handler hadn’t. Ash ran, scrambled over another fence, only to hear shouts of alarm from more security guards. Glyph and Six saw Ash in trouble but would jeopardise the run if they went to his aid. Ash ran past the fire escape they were climbing up, but came face to face with more guards, He ran back the way he had come but again guards were closing in, Ash got his shotgun and began shooting, and the guards began to return fire. And then Ash screamed. They pinned him to the ground with a pain inducer, before knocking him out cold. Six and Glyph heard Ash’s screams cut short.
They made their way to the fire escape door and cut their way through. The headed to Calahan’s door and Calahan’s girlfriend answered. They pushed in and after trying to explain that everything would be okay if she co-operated they shot her with a stick-shock™ round. Calahan turned up not much later and Glyph forced him to co-operate at gun point. The plan was simple. They would head out casually to the van, and then once on the move, they would drive out of the automated gates before anyone could stop them.
They got to the van; Calahan was able to provide enough credibility to bluff the guards. And they drove out towards the gates but the second set of gates were on shut down. Glyph handed Six her custom gun with mini-grenade launcher and Six leaned out of the window and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Glyph had forgotten that she had put a biometric safety on the weapon, the van ploughed into the firmly shut security gates.
Glyph and Six were unhurt, and they fled.
Six got his rig on, firing up Ash’s truck and his own car while driving the van. Glyph searched for RFID tags on their two hostages while Six worked an escape plan. His own car parked up next to a large tree and as the van flashed past he remotely shot out at the base of the tree, if fortuitously fell across the road barring any pursuit vehicles.
Once the RFID tags had been found they ditched the van and switched to Ash’s truck and fled into the night.
Ash was captured. The Chinese corporation employed a specialist interrogator to find out what was going on. Ash screamed as he was tortured but he didn’t give away anything. Even his own name he protected.
Six and Glyph contacted the Johnson to tell him that they had his man. And the Johnson asked a favour. Look after him until the morning, Future Concepts didn’t realize that they would have a hostile employee, and needed to put measures in place to ensure that he stayed with them once the runners left. Six and Glyph had to split. Glyph looked after their scientist. Six took the unconscious woman who was also employed by Mitsuhama and contacted them to exchange her for the captured Ash.
Things happened quickly, Mitsuhama agreed to meet up with Six at a park he had arranged.
The two cars, Six’s and Mitsuhama’s were parked 100 yards or so apart. The man Six had been negotiating with stepped out of the car and Six instructed him to send Ash. Ash was sat in the car with an explosive device strapped across his chest wasn’t keen on getting out to be used as some kind of remote control mine, but at the same time didn’t like the idea of being sat in the car either. He stepped out.
Six sent the woman back to her employers, and then Six got a call from the Mitsuhama man. He explained that Ash was rigged to blow, and he wanted to know who their employers were. Eventually Six told them the Johnson’s number and the name of the Corp who was employing them. Ash had the explosives taken off and was free.
Glyph sat in Future Concepts HQ alone with a magazine and a cup of coffee for company waiting for the morning. Two men approached. They told her that Mr. Johnson had sent them and that she was relieved of watching Dr. Calahan. She didn’t believe that their employer had sent them and called him to confirm that the two goons were not from Future Concepts. A hail of bullets followed leaving nothing but two dead goons.
The runners quickly met up again, and were relieve when the Mr. Johnson from Future Concepts finally took delivery of Dr. Calahan. They were paid in full. And Ash treated them to dinner…
The runners were free to get back to San Francisco if they choose. Six has ordered a new bit of Cyberware that he wants Mal to fix him up with when he is next at the street Doc’s.
Ash, Glyph, Six.
Nunzio contacted six. He had been working hard behind the scenes with the Triads to bring an end to this feud that they had with his little brother. Nunzio put a call through from the Triad gang leader, Kung Lok.
Kung Lok told Six that he was not happy with the disrespect the runners had show to the Seven Star Triad family, but that he understood why they had taken the Lone Star bounties. He offered Six a deal. 30k payment as a show of deference and Kung Lok would end the attacks on the runners. Six accepted, and the triad leader also hinted that their effectiveness didn’t go unnoticed and that work may come their way in the future.
Meanwhile Smith contacted Ash again, the fixer he had made contact with a week or so ago. Smith told him that there was the prospect of a job available and if the runners were interested to meet at the McMurray Grand hotel.
They were, although they had the chance to head back home, they fancied one last job in Atlanta. It may open up possibilities to make a few more contacts outside San Fran and may provide a familiar bolthole to retreat to in the future.
The runners met the fixer at the hotel and he took them through to the bar to explain the deal. Rather than get his fingers burned with runners he doesn’t know, he offered to pass the runners to the Johnson directly. That way his rep wouldn’t suffer so badly if things went wrong for the team. He asked that he took a 10% cut of their final pay. A finder’s fee for linking the runners up with the job. They accepted and they headed to a hotel suite where the Mr. Johnson waited.
The job was simple, a simple search and retrieval of a doctor who failed to turn up for work, he job was coming from Future Concepts a corporation who poached the best scientists, innovated the next big thing, and then sold the ideas back to the bigger corporations. They had been approached by a Dr. Lawrence Calahan who wanted to move from Mitsuhama and they gave him a contract. Only, a week after he was due to start work, he never showed. They accepted the job, but Glyph quibbled on the pricing structure between the Johnson, the Fixer, and the three of them. Wanting to make friends and influence people in Atlanta, Six took Glyph to one side, and Ash closed the deal with no more arguments.
Settling down in the bar area with all of the information to hand, the runners planned their moves. Six called Mitsuhama to see if Dr. Calahan was still working for them. After getting passed through the switchboard system he eventually spoke with the man they were after. Six briefly mentioned the job at Future Concepts Calahan dismissed it and said that he no longer wanted to work for FC.
Ash contacted the Johnson again, who was only mildly surprised that he was still working at Mitushama, as far as he was concerned the job was still on, and the runners agreed. Glyph again quibbled that the remit had changed and they should try to squeeze more money out of the Johnson. Six and Ash ignored her.
The runners pulled down some information about the Mitsuhama complex, and found that it was a sprawling self contained corporate enclave with housing and working requirements fulfilled in the 1 mile x half a mile extraterritorial portion of the CAS. Surveillance was in order, but first the runners wanted to get together some equipment and visit his old flat.
His old flat was empty. Cleared out of all personal effects. The runners hunted around and found little. A few scraps of paper with some phone numbers jotted down. Six called one of the phone numbers and seemed to turn up a colleague of his. But otherwise they found nothing.
The runners then headed to the Mitsuhama complex. Ash and Glyph parked up and took up observations about a mile away, Six drove on and parked the car on the road, just in case they needed options. And then they sat and watched. Glyph had to abort a closer inspection because guards spotted her, so Six then sent his fly-spy drone in for a look.
Meanwhile Ash took a call from Ka-Hil. He wanted to meet up with Ash to discuss the magical group. Ash was torn, he was desperate to further his relationship with this mysterious magical group, but at the same time didn’t want to leave the job part way through. Six didn’t make it any easier when Ash told them that he was off. Ash took the truck and headed back into Atlanta. Glyph and Six sat on a log watching the complex. It started to rain.
Hours passed, Six had managed to get his Flyspy drone into Dr. Calahan’s apartment and the two runners sat and waited. A van pulled up nearby. It was still raining and it was dark but they could see that Mitsuhama security also performed sweeps of the local countryside if prompted by something. Six realised that his Drone link could be giving them away and killed the connection. They then moved off.
Thinking quickly, they then moved back toward the van. They disabled the alarm and slipped into the back while the two security men performed their sweep. They sat quietly and then were driven straight into the heavily guarded complex unseen, with not a shot fired.
Ash spent 3 hours talking to Ka-Hil. He explained the magical group, he told him the practices, and he told Ash that he would need to choose an adepts way. Ash had a tough decision regarding the way he wanted his training to be focused but eventually chose the Invisible Way. Ka-Hil nodded his agreement with the choice and told Ash that he would get a chance to meet up with his mentor soon.
Ash then blazed back to his friends outside Mitsuhama. Only they were no longer outside Mitsuhama. Ash got worried. He could see that another vehicle had pulled up, and he could see that people had gotten into the back of the van, and Ash feared that his friends had been taken prisoner.
Meanwhile Glyph and Six were sneaking around inside the complex. They had taken one of the vans and were presently making their way up a fire escape into Calahan’s living block.
Ash made a rash move. He snuck down the hill to the main security fence and cut his way through. Then after crawling through the gap he had cut he saw that a guard dog had spotted him even if the handler hadn’t. Ash ran, scrambled over another fence, only to hear shouts of alarm from more security guards. Glyph and Six saw Ash in trouble but would jeopardise the run if they went to his aid. Ash ran past the fire escape they were climbing up, but came face to face with more guards, He ran back the way he had come but again guards were closing in, Ash got his shotgun and began shooting, and the guards began to return fire. And then Ash screamed. They pinned him to the ground with a pain inducer, before knocking him out cold. Six and Glyph heard Ash’s screams cut short.
They made their way to the fire escape door and cut their way through. The headed to Calahan’s door and Calahan’s girlfriend answered. They pushed in and after trying to explain that everything would be okay if she co-operated they shot her with a stick-shock™ round. Calahan turned up not much later and Glyph forced him to co-operate at gun point. The plan was simple. They would head out casually to the van, and then once on the move, they would drive out of the automated gates before anyone could stop them.
They got to the van; Calahan was able to provide enough credibility to bluff the guards. And they drove out towards the gates but the second set of gates were on shut down. Glyph handed Six her custom gun with mini-grenade launcher and Six leaned out of the window and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Glyph had forgotten that she had put a biometric safety on the weapon, the van ploughed into the firmly shut security gates.
Glyph and Six were unhurt, and they fled.
Six got his rig on, firing up Ash’s truck and his own car while driving the van. Glyph searched for RFID tags on their two hostages while Six worked an escape plan. His own car parked up next to a large tree and as the van flashed past he remotely shot out at the base of the tree, if fortuitously fell across the road barring any pursuit vehicles.
Once the RFID tags had been found they ditched the van and switched to Ash’s truck and fled into the night.
Ash was captured. The Chinese corporation employed a specialist interrogator to find out what was going on. Ash screamed as he was tortured but he didn’t give away anything. Even his own name he protected.
Six and Glyph contacted the Johnson to tell him that they had his man. And the Johnson asked a favour. Look after him until the morning, Future Concepts didn’t realize that they would have a hostile employee, and needed to put measures in place to ensure that he stayed with them once the runners left. Six and Glyph had to split. Glyph looked after their scientist. Six took the unconscious woman who was also employed by Mitsuhama and contacted them to exchange her for the captured Ash.
Things happened quickly, Mitsuhama agreed to meet up with Six at a park he had arranged.
The two cars, Six’s and Mitsuhama’s were parked 100 yards or so apart. The man Six had been negotiating with stepped out of the car and Six instructed him to send Ash. Ash was sat in the car with an explosive device strapped across his chest wasn’t keen on getting out to be used as some kind of remote control mine, but at the same time didn’t like the idea of being sat in the car either. He stepped out.
Six sent the woman back to her employers, and then Six got a call from the Mitsuhama man. He explained that Ash was rigged to blow, and he wanted to know who their employers were. Eventually Six told them the Johnson’s number and the name of the Corp who was employing them. Ash had the explosives taken off and was free.
Glyph sat in Future Concepts HQ alone with a magazine and a cup of coffee for company waiting for the morning. Two men approached. They told her that Mr. Johnson had sent them and that she was relieved of watching Dr. Calahan. She didn’t believe that their employer had sent them and called him to confirm that the two goons were not from Future Concepts. A hail of bullets followed leaving nothing but two dead goons.
The runners quickly met up again, and were relieve when the Mr. Johnson from Future Concepts finally took delivery of Dr. Calahan. They were paid in full. And Ash treated them to dinner…
The runners were free to get back to San Francisco if they choose. Six has ordered a new bit of Cyberware that he wants Mal to fix him up with when he is next at the street Doc’s.
Six's Blog
Call Dir: Shadownet/ShadowlandsBBS/>
Select Region: Region=SanFrancisco>
Call SubDir: SanFrancisco/WeBlogs>
Select Blog: Author=V.Six>
Initializing…>
Error 006 Cannot locate host.
sending error.
Disconecting....
Rety in 3..2..1..
Call Dir: Shadownet/ShadowlandsBBS/>
Select Region: Region=SanFrancisco>
Call SubDir: SanFrancisco/WeBlogs>
Select Blog: Author=V.Six>
Initializing…>
Entry 25: 06.08.70>
Ash is up to something. Devious little turd. I know he’s been out and about in Atlanta, doing his thing, flexing the feelers and trying to set us up with sufficient contacts to make us more effective. However, he’s going about it in a manner I’m not sure I like, getting us involved, again, in far deeper shit than I think we can handle.
He came in from one of his contact meet-n-greets a few days back with a mission he told us just had to be done. Pressed, he told us it was for ‘a friend’ and admitted that we wouldn’t be getting paid. Now give the lad his due, he offered to pay Glyph and I for our assistance, out of his own pocket but alarm bells were already starting to ring – none of us know anyone down here well enough to be doing jobs on the house… With reservations then, we agreed to help and soon came to realise that there was a philanthropic kilter to the Run he’d picked up. Atlanta has its very own Orkish Underground, which goes by the name of The Falls. The place has been getting terrorised for the past six years by a serial killer dubbed Lobo and Ash wanted us to go down there and serve up a slice of justice. The authorities don’t care about the place – evidently this new ‘friend’ Ash has made, does.
We resolved to head down there as disguised as we could make ourselves. We bought a couple of Rat Bikes and I got them running, while Ash invested in some tatty clothing and dirtied up our gear – we didn’t want to get lynched for our ‘shinies’ by a horde of Ork Tramps. Reasoning that cash would have little value in the slums of the undercity, Glyph collected together some barter items – food stuffs, medical supplies, booze and fags and suitable togged up we went looking for trouble.
Just getting into the place was a trial. Friendly and welcoming they ain’t but we made our way around the barricades, observation posts and obvious ambush points thanks to the bikes and rode on in. Place is called The Falls because of the constantly streaming water that cascades from the foundations of Atlanta above down on to the undercity – a brackish mix of rainwater, spill from cracked utility pipes, sewage overflow and the natural leak from the water table. It’s a shitty way to live basically and whole areas of the place are flooded with several feet of collected water.
The inhabitants could see through our disguises straight away. Proud to a man, they were unwilling to accept help from outsiders and it took all of our collective powers of persuasion just to get them to talk to us. The art of persuasion often includes violence however and as Ash negotiated, Glyph and I clocked a group of Toughs moving in to get personal. One of them was carrying a sap and intended to use it but when it was shot right out of his hand, he took the point that we might object. The air was thick with unspoken threats of violence for a while but I twigged we were outside what passed for a hospital down there. Medical supplies changed hands and we ‘bought’ the information we were after.
We were pointed in the direction of an area of the undercity known as The Dark. The power seemed to be out in the entire area, evidently giving the place it’s name and as we made our way down to that sector, we mulled over the information we’d been given. It seemed Lobo’s victims were often found with circular abrasions on their chest and temple. We speculated that they might correspond to the medical pads used to monitor heart rate and brain activity and suddenly we began to smell rat. It was beginning to have all the hallmarks of another fucking Corp screw-job, using The Falls’ inhabitants as guinea pigs.
Continues: 1/2>
|| >
We were all twitchy, but it was Glyph’s eagle eyes that spotted the first concrete evidence we were right about Corp involvement. As we hunted for a likely-looking building to serve as a temporary base of operations, she spotted that we were under surveillance from the distinctive profile of a set of night vision goggles. It was kit far too high tech for the undercity’s indigenous population so we began to revise our expectations of what we might come up against.
A quick recce soon confirmed that we would need to descend down to the lowest level of The Dark and overcoming a mixture of fear and distaste, we pressed on, chasing half seen shadows of movement, flickers at the edges of our vision and a deep baritone growl. Down at the bottom of the Underground we encountered our first serious resistance – a Corp kill-team kitted out for surveillance. Pinned down at the bottom of the stairwell we had to think fast and pull a twin flanking manoeuvre to switch around behind them and put them out of action. It was then we discovered the first body. It had clearly been the Corp team’s objective – relatively fresh but fitted with sophisticated medical monitoring equipment. Here was a pretty puzzle. Were the Corp ‘feeding’ civilians to Lobo? What information could they hope to obtain from the medical data of a sacrificial lamb?
Pushing on, we got a stroke of luck and spotted light reflecting off of the waters. Tracing it back to the source, we found a relatively intact building, with its own power supply and slipped inside the building opposite so we could make our way up to the windows and see what the hell our neighbours were up to. Jackpot! We were looking across at the Corp nerve centre, just a street’s width away, fully kitted out with computer equipment, signal uplink, medical monitoring bay and armed guards. We lined up, showdown style, at the window and on the count of three let hot lead rip from room to room. It was over in seconds – a concerted burst of fire that took them completely by surprise and finished the battle in our favour before they even knew they were fighting for their lives.
The Corp Ops were monitoring four camera feeds – three from ordinary residents going about their business and one from the viewpoint of someone stalking the Dark near our position. Figuring this to be Lobo, Ash and I headed out to pick up his train leaving Glyph at the monitoring station. She soon found that the Corps had been doing more than simple monitoring – they were directing the flow of certain stimuli to Lobo, effectively switching him on and off, controlling when he was a killer and when he was indistinguishable from other civilians. The bastards had themselves a Manchurian candidate and by the looks of it, several more waiting in the wings. Glyph turned down the stimuli so we could approach this Lobo and try to talk to him but the instant he came down from his drug-fuelled high, he was wracked by remorse, threw down two monowire scythes and fled sobbing.
We had ourselves a dilemma. These Lobo’s weren’t in control of their actions and that made bringing them to justice unfair at the very least. We also didn’t dare sabotage the equipment for fear it would activate all of the Sleeper Lobos and send them running riot. We needed guidance so Ash phoned his mystery contact. In moments, the Run was off. Ash’ new buddy Chuckles had known about these goings on all along and set the whole thing up so that the true evil of the corporations would be revealed to us. What a crock. If Chuckles had bothered to talk to us instead of being all pious and holier than thou he’d have found out our true feelings where the Corps are concerned. With the trials and tribulations we’ve had, he’s preaching to the converted and I don’t like it. I don’t like being taught unnecessary lessons in morality by strangers and worse still, I don’t like the thought that Chuckles is effectively party to the problems in The Falls. He admits to knowing what’s going on yet permits it to happen? Poor form. Ash needs to wise up pronto and ditch this paizon.
Mood: Irritated.
Ends: 2/2>
||
Select Region: Region=SanFrancisco>
Call SubDir: SanFrancisco/WeBlogs>
Select Blog: Author=V.Six>
Initializing…>
Error 006 Cannot locate host.
sending error.
Disconecting....
Rety in 3..2..1..
Call Dir: Shadownet/ShadowlandsBBS/>
Select Region: Region=SanFrancisco>
Call SubDir: SanFrancisco/WeBlogs>
Select Blog: Author=V.Six>
Initializing…>
Entry 25: 06.08.70>
Ash is up to something. Devious little turd. I know he’s been out and about in Atlanta, doing his thing, flexing the feelers and trying to set us up with sufficient contacts to make us more effective. However, he’s going about it in a manner I’m not sure I like, getting us involved, again, in far deeper shit than I think we can handle.
He came in from one of his contact meet-n-greets a few days back with a mission he told us just had to be done. Pressed, he told us it was for ‘a friend’ and admitted that we wouldn’t be getting paid. Now give the lad his due, he offered to pay Glyph and I for our assistance, out of his own pocket but alarm bells were already starting to ring – none of us know anyone down here well enough to be doing jobs on the house… With reservations then, we agreed to help and soon came to realise that there was a philanthropic kilter to the Run he’d picked up. Atlanta has its very own Orkish Underground, which goes by the name of The Falls. The place has been getting terrorised for the past six years by a serial killer dubbed Lobo and Ash wanted us to go down there and serve up a slice of justice. The authorities don’t care about the place – evidently this new ‘friend’ Ash has made, does.
We resolved to head down there as disguised as we could make ourselves. We bought a couple of Rat Bikes and I got them running, while Ash invested in some tatty clothing and dirtied up our gear – we didn’t want to get lynched for our ‘shinies’ by a horde of Ork Tramps. Reasoning that cash would have little value in the slums of the undercity, Glyph collected together some barter items – food stuffs, medical supplies, booze and fags and suitable togged up we went looking for trouble.
Just getting into the place was a trial. Friendly and welcoming they ain’t but we made our way around the barricades, observation posts and obvious ambush points thanks to the bikes and rode on in. Place is called The Falls because of the constantly streaming water that cascades from the foundations of Atlanta above down on to the undercity – a brackish mix of rainwater, spill from cracked utility pipes, sewage overflow and the natural leak from the water table. It’s a shitty way to live basically and whole areas of the place are flooded with several feet of collected water.
The inhabitants could see through our disguises straight away. Proud to a man, they were unwilling to accept help from outsiders and it took all of our collective powers of persuasion just to get them to talk to us. The art of persuasion often includes violence however and as Ash negotiated, Glyph and I clocked a group of Toughs moving in to get personal. One of them was carrying a sap and intended to use it but when it was shot right out of his hand, he took the point that we might object. The air was thick with unspoken threats of violence for a while but I twigged we were outside what passed for a hospital down there. Medical supplies changed hands and we ‘bought’ the information we were after.
We were pointed in the direction of an area of the undercity known as The Dark. The power seemed to be out in the entire area, evidently giving the place it’s name and as we made our way down to that sector, we mulled over the information we’d been given. It seemed Lobo’s victims were often found with circular abrasions on their chest and temple. We speculated that they might correspond to the medical pads used to monitor heart rate and brain activity and suddenly we began to smell rat. It was beginning to have all the hallmarks of another fucking Corp screw-job, using The Falls’ inhabitants as guinea pigs.
Continues: 1/2>
|| >
We were all twitchy, but it was Glyph’s eagle eyes that spotted the first concrete evidence we were right about Corp involvement. As we hunted for a likely-looking building to serve as a temporary base of operations, she spotted that we were under surveillance from the distinctive profile of a set of night vision goggles. It was kit far too high tech for the undercity’s indigenous population so we began to revise our expectations of what we might come up against.
A quick recce soon confirmed that we would need to descend down to the lowest level of The Dark and overcoming a mixture of fear and distaste, we pressed on, chasing half seen shadows of movement, flickers at the edges of our vision and a deep baritone growl. Down at the bottom of the Underground we encountered our first serious resistance – a Corp kill-team kitted out for surveillance. Pinned down at the bottom of the stairwell we had to think fast and pull a twin flanking manoeuvre to switch around behind them and put them out of action. It was then we discovered the first body. It had clearly been the Corp team’s objective – relatively fresh but fitted with sophisticated medical monitoring equipment. Here was a pretty puzzle. Were the Corp ‘feeding’ civilians to Lobo? What information could they hope to obtain from the medical data of a sacrificial lamb?
Pushing on, we got a stroke of luck and spotted light reflecting off of the waters. Tracing it back to the source, we found a relatively intact building, with its own power supply and slipped inside the building opposite so we could make our way up to the windows and see what the hell our neighbours were up to. Jackpot! We were looking across at the Corp nerve centre, just a street’s width away, fully kitted out with computer equipment, signal uplink, medical monitoring bay and armed guards. We lined up, showdown style, at the window and on the count of three let hot lead rip from room to room. It was over in seconds – a concerted burst of fire that took them completely by surprise and finished the battle in our favour before they even knew they were fighting for their lives.
The Corp Ops were monitoring four camera feeds – three from ordinary residents going about their business and one from the viewpoint of someone stalking the Dark near our position. Figuring this to be Lobo, Ash and I headed out to pick up his train leaving Glyph at the monitoring station. She soon found that the Corps had been doing more than simple monitoring – they were directing the flow of certain stimuli to Lobo, effectively switching him on and off, controlling when he was a killer and when he was indistinguishable from other civilians. The bastards had themselves a Manchurian candidate and by the looks of it, several more waiting in the wings. Glyph turned down the stimuli so we could approach this Lobo and try to talk to him but the instant he came down from his drug-fuelled high, he was wracked by remorse, threw down two monowire scythes and fled sobbing.
We had ourselves a dilemma. These Lobo’s weren’t in control of their actions and that made bringing them to justice unfair at the very least. We also didn’t dare sabotage the equipment for fear it would activate all of the Sleeper Lobos and send them running riot. We needed guidance so Ash phoned his mystery contact. In moments, the Run was off. Ash’ new buddy Chuckles had known about these goings on all along and set the whole thing up so that the true evil of the corporations would be revealed to us. What a crock. If Chuckles had bothered to talk to us instead of being all pious and holier than thou he’d have found out our true feelings where the Corps are concerned. With the trials and tribulations we’ve had, he’s preaching to the converted and I don’t like it. I don’t like being taught unnecessary lessons in morality by strangers and worse still, I don’t like the thought that Chuckles is effectively party to the problems in The Falls. He admits to knowing what’s going on yet permits it to happen? Poor form. Ash needs to wise up pronto and ditch this paizon.
Mood: Irritated.
Ends: 2/2>
||
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Ash's test.
Ash, Glyph, Six.
Six, Ash and Glyph boarded the plane back to Atlanta with Daisy and had an uneventful flight. They touched down and got in touch with Ki-Rin and Sickle. They had found a new safe house and the runners headed round for some much needed rest.
For the next week little happened and the runners settled down into a bit of a routine. Six worked on Ash’s truck to get it back up to Six’s Custom quality. Glyph got together some tools to work on building a new personal weapon and disappeared into her makeshift workshop. Ash headed out into the city to see if he could make some contacts here in Atlanta.
Thursday 3rd Aug 2070
About 3pm Ash received a call from a man calling himself Ka-Hil. He told Ash that they should meet at a nightclub in Atlanta called the Cauldron so they could talk about magical tutorage. Ash had put the feelers out a few weeks previously to see if he could join a magical group, and he jumped at the offer deciding to go alone to this meet.
The nightclub was a magicians paradise with a light display augmented by several other magicians in the room competing to show the best visual display. Ash stood for a few minutes taking in the scene when a 6foot + Ork made his way across. Wearing jeans and jacket lined with a form of snake skin, he wore a chainmail undershirt, with a pair of wicked blades crossed across his chest. He studied Ash for a few moments before thrusting out his hand and introducing himself as Ka-Hil.
Ka-Hil told Ash that he belonged to a magical group and although he couldn’t tell Ash anything about it he did offer to test Ash to see if he was suitable. Ash eagerly agreed to take Ka-Hil’s test.
Ka-Hil went on to explain that there is a place under Atlanta, an underground habitat that has become a slum occupied by the unwanted, the homeless and metahumans, and Orkish Underground named by the residents as the Falls. This area has been terrorised by a Serial Killer named by the denizens of the Falls as Le Lobo. This killer had been on the loose for well over six years, and Ka-Hil wanted Ash to bring the murderer to justice. Ash was allowed to involve his friends, not to do so could well be suicide, but he mustn’t tell them the reasons why.
Ash went back and told Six and Glyph what he intends to do. Six and Glyph were dubious and Ash’s faltering reasons raised suspicions. But they had his back.
Over the next couple of days the runners gathered together some scrap heap bikes, which they repaired, they got hold of some trampy clothes, and they bought up some supplies of food booze fags and medical supplied which they might be able to use as barter in case money isn’t the only form of currency.
Sunday 6th August 2070 4pm
The runners headed off through the city to head to one of the old roadway entrances to The Atlanta Underground Habitat dressed in their old clothes riding beaten up scrap bikes. They found that the AUH had been barricaded off and now had some kind of watch at the door to deter unwanted topsiders from entering. The runners just rode past.
Entering the underground habitat the runners found why it was called the Falls. Water from the city above streamed in from the roof above. Waste, sewage, lost fresh water all rained down in a hundred acrid waterfalls. The runners got on with the task in hand and started to approach locals to ask about Le Lobo.
It was Ash’s gig so he was asking all the questions, but his human face didn’t fit in, and when he proclaimed that he was here to help clear away a problem the local enforcers took umbrage and gave Ash nothing but attitude. It wasn’t until the runners showed a bit of force followed by a calm attitude that they started to get some answers.
Le Lobo seemed to be taking victims from all over the city, and then the mutilated corpses were turning up near a place called The Dark. An area of the underground city that didn’t get any of the already patchy power at all. The runners headed over and holed up in an abandoned building.
The residents had long since moved out of the no mans land between The Dark and the rest of the Falls, but Glyph spotted a couple of people equipped with high tech equipment keeping an eye on them.
The runners surmised that The Dark is where it was happening and although they didn’t like the idea of descending into the depths of the abandoned habitat levels they felt they had no choice. At the foot of the stairs the runners were engaged by thee special operatives, equipped with cutting edge armour, Glyph Six and Ash got shooty, and eventually prevailed.
After the gunfire had stopped, they were able to squeeze a few answers out of one of the dying guards. The murderer seemed to be some kind of corporate sponsored project and that there were more of these special ops. guys down here. And then before they could ask any more, he karked it!
The runners found nearby a butchered corpse, with some kind of medical monitoring equipment attached to her body. Then the runners heard a bestial roar. The runners did a circuit of this level but found nothing noteworthy. They then decided to head down to the flooded level below, surmising that whatever murderous operation was going on, the corporation would need to hide it from the locals, and the water would dampen the heat sources generated.
Wading though the water the runners spotted a single well lit building. They headed over and took up position in the building opposite. There were 4 operators inside, working on computer terminals and getting on with their jobs, oblivious to the runners taking aim in a darkened building across the street. A hail of bullets took out the 4 ops. inside and saved the runners a messy building assault.
Inside the operations room, the runners found a high tech monitoring station with video feed coming from 4 individuals. 3 of whom were going about day to day life, the fourth was stalking around in the flooded levels not far from where the runners were.
Ash and Six headed out to take out the murderer, while Glyph tried to look into the computer code. It seemed that the murderer(s) were being controlled from this terminal, and Glyph shut down this one.
Watching the killer Ash and Six were ready to open fire, when Glyph threw the switch. The Troll had a moment of disorientation before fully realising what he had been forced to do, again, by the corporation. Emotion overwhelmed him and he broke down.
This left Ash in a quandary. The murderer was being coerced into killing by the corporation. How could he bring justice to the killer? Ash called Ka-Hil and began to explain the situation. Ka-Hil interrupted him and told him that he knew what was going on. He told Ash that they needed to meet up.
Ash, Six and Glyph left The Falls, and headed to exit ramp 5, where they were to meet Ka-Hil. Ash went over alone to talk with him. Ka-Hil then explained that the test was to find out if Ash could find the enemy, and then identify the real enemy and to show him that the real killers who need to be brought to justice are the corporations who continue to abuse the populace for their own ends. Ash had passed the test that was set for him with the help of Six and Glyph. Ka-Hil agreed to petition for his admittance to the secretive magical group, and told Ash that he would be in touch.
Six and Glyph had the distinct feeling that they had been fucked over again, and that Ash was once again getting involved in things above his head. Ash was chuffed.
Six, Ash and Glyph boarded the plane back to Atlanta with Daisy and had an uneventful flight. They touched down and got in touch with Ki-Rin and Sickle. They had found a new safe house and the runners headed round for some much needed rest.
For the next week little happened and the runners settled down into a bit of a routine. Six worked on Ash’s truck to get it back up to Six’s Custom quality. Glyph got together some tools to work on building a new personal weapon and disappeared into her makeshift workshop. Ash headed out into the city to see if he could make some contacts here in Atlanta.
Thursday 3rd Aug 2070
About 3pm Ash received a call from a man calling himself Ka-Hil. He told Ash that they should meet at a nightclub in Atlanta called the Cauldron so they could talk about magical tutorage. Ash had put the feelers out a few weeks previously to see if he could join a magical group, and he jumped at the offer deciding to go alone to this meet.
The nightclub was a magicians paradise with a light display augmented by several other magicians in the room competing to show the best visual display. Ash stood for a few minutes taking in the scene when a 6foot + Ork made his way across. Wearing jeans and jacket lined with a form of snake skin, he wore a chainmail undershirt, with a pair of wicked blades crossed across his chest. He studied Ash for a few moments before thrusting out his hand and introducing himself as Ka-Hil.
Ka-Hil told Ash that he belonged to a magical group and although he couldn’t tell Ash anything about it he did offer to test Ash to see if he was suitable. Ash eagerly agreed to take Ka-Hil’s test.
Ka-Hil went on to explain that there is a place under Atlanta, an underground habitat that has become a slum occupied by the unwanted, the homeless and metahumans, and Orkish Underground named by the residents as the Falls. This area has been terrorised by a Serial Killer named by the denizens of the Falls as Le Lobo. This killer had been on the loose for well over six years, and Ka-Hil wanted Ash to bring the murderer to justice. Ash was allowed to involve his friends, not to do so could well be suicide, but he mustn’t tell them the reasons why.
Ash went back and told Six and Glyph what he intends to do. Six and Glyph were dubious and Ash’s faltering reasons raised suspicions. But they had his back.
Over the next couple of days the runners gathered together some scrap heap bikes, which they repaired, they got hold of some trampy clothes, and they bought up some supplies of food booze fags and medical supplied which they might be able to use as barter in case money isn’t the only form of currency.
Sunday 6th August 2070 4pm
The runners headed off through the city to head to one of the old roadway entrances to The Atlanta Underground Habitat dressed in their old clothes riding beaten up scrap bikes. They found that the AUH had been barricaded off and now had some kind of watch at the door to deter unwanted topsiders from entering. The runners just rode past.
Entering the underground habitat the runners found why it was called the Falls. Water from the city above streamed in from the roof above. Waste, sewage, lost fresh water all rained down in a hundred acrid waterfalls. The runners got on with the task in hand and started to approach locals to ask about Le Lobo.
It was Ash’s gig so he was asking all the questions, but his human face didn’t fit in, and when he proclaimed that he was here to help clear away a problem the local enforcers took umbrage and gave Ash nothing but attitude. It wasn’t until the runners showed a bit of force followed by a calm attitude that they started to get some answers.
Le Lobo seemed to be taking victims from all over the city, and then the mutilated corpses were turning up near a place called The Dark. An area of the underground city that didn’t get any of the already patchy power at all. The runners headed over and holed up in an abandoned building.
The residents had long since moved out of the no mans land between The Dark and the rest of the Falls, but Glyph spotted a couple of people equipped with high tech equipment keeping an eye on them.
The runners surmised that The Dark is where it was happening and although they didn’t like the idea of descending into the depths of the abandoned habitat levels they felt they had no choice. At the foot of the stairs the runners were engaged by thee special operatives, equipped with cutting edge armour, Glyph Six and Ash got shooty, and eventually prevailed.
After the gunfire had stopped, they were able to squeeze a few answers out of one of the dying guards. The murderer seemed to be some kind of corporate sponsored project and that there were more of these special ops. guys down here. And then before they could ask any more, he karked it!
The runners found nearby a butchered corpse, with some kind of medical monitoring equipment attached to her body. Then the runners heard a bestial roar. The runners did a circuit of this level but found nothing noteworthy. They then decided to head down to the flooded level below, surmising that whatever murderous operation was going on, the corporation would need to hide it from the locals, and the water would dampen the heat sources generated.
Wading though the water the runners spotted a single well lit building. They headed over and took up position in the building opposite. There were 4 operators inside, working on computer terminals and getting on with their jobs, oblivious to the runners taking aim in a darkened building across the street. A hail of bullets took out the 4 ops. inside and saved the runners a messy building assault.
Inside the operations room, the runners found a high tech monitoring station with video feed coming from 4 individuals. 3 of whom were going about day to day life, the fourth was stalking around in the flooded levels not far from where the runners were.
Ash and Six headed out to take out the murderer, while Glyph tried to look into the computer code. It seemed that the murderer(s) were being controlled from this terminal, and Glyph shut down this one.
Watching the killer Ash and Six were ready to open fire, when Glyph threw the switch. The Troll had a moment of disorientation before fully realising what he had been forced to do, again, by the corporation. Emotion overwhelmed him and he broke down.
This left Ash in a quandary. The murderer was being coerced into killing by the corporation. How could he bring justice to the killer? Ash called Ka-Hil and began to explain the situation. Ka-Hil interrupted him and told him that he knew what was going on. He told Ash that they needed to meet up.
Ash, Six and Glyph left The Falls, and headed to exit ramp 5, where they were to meet Ka-Hil. Ash went over alone to talk with him. Ka-Hil then explained that the test was to find out if Ash could find the enemy, and then identify the real enemy and to show him that the real killers who need to be brought to justice are the corporations who continue to abuse the populace for their own ends. Ash had passed the test that was set for him with the help of Six and Glyph. Ka-Hil agreed to petition for his admittance to the secretive magical group, and told Ash that he would be in touch.
Six and Glyph had the distinct feeling that they had been fucked over again, and that Ash was once again getting involved in things above his head. Ash was chuffed.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Six's blog
Call Dir: Shadownet/ShadowlandsBBS/>
Select Region: Region=SanFrancisco>
Call SubDir: SanFrancisco/WeBlogs>
Select Blog: Author=V.Six>
Initializing…>
Entry 24: 20.07.70>
Revelations and retribution overnight – in roughly equal measure. Again I’m feeling calmer now that we’ve taken action, made a stand, and done something proactive to look out for our own rather than sitting back and letting life happen to us.
Glyph, Ash and I hauled ass down to the airport and took delivery of the little turboprop plane I’d leased for the flight into San Fran. The whole city was shrouded in fog but good to his word, Drifter was waiting for us when we touched down – when you know you’re walking into trouble it pays to have as many friends as possible watching your back.
Wasting little time, we blazed right on over to Daisy’s and did a cautious little recce. Our suspicions were raised that someone was mooching around inside – Drifter covered the front and Glyph headed for the rear while Ash and I made our way inside. Man I felt for Ash as we crept across the blackened remains of his sister’s lounge. Some sort of freak ass explosion had made the room bulge outwards, literally pushing every single item as far up against the walls as it would go. I made my way into the bathroom, covering the hallway as Ash crept down to surprise the lurker. I only heard one shot – Ash drilling the little toad – and it was a good job he’d controlled his temper enough to use Stick Shock because the intruder was prettied up with a Lone Star badge proclaiming him to be part of some sort of Occult Investigator. While Ash made with the thumbscrews, hot coals and whatever else passes for torture and interrogation in a young woman’s kitchen, I switched on the lights and found that Daisy had been graffiti-ing the tiles in her shower with lippy. The phone number got me through to some Corp-line with an automated switchboard. Clearly Daisy had tried to send us a message but I couldn’t make head nor tail of it.
Fortunately, Ash was a bit more savvy. The Occult Investigator was a dwarf by the name of Glyn Boucher who was investigating the activity of a Spirit of Man. Daisy’s place had all the clues that pointed to this spirit’s involvement apparently but the only lead Boucher could share with us was a suspicion that a recently elevated Corp called Genesis had some sort of tenuous involvement. Having learnt that there’s no point pissing off Lone Star unnecessarily, Ash let him go and we pooled our ideas.
Glyph had managed to retrieve some video feed from Daisy’s front door and that showed Daisy and Blake being bundled out of the flat by the same spirit-creature we’d faced at April Walkers talismongery in Birmingham, Alabama. Creepy Little Bastard. Realising we’d need a mage to have any hope of tracking a spirit, we picked one at random from the White Pages – dude by the name of Starr who seemed to have all the right professional credentials.
Ash set to work on Daisy’s little conundrum to see if he could fathom out what the hell clue she’d tried to leave us.
Continues: 1/2>
|| >
It was about then that several things started to come together and point in the same direction for us. Lone Star’s finest had tipped us off to his suspicions about Genesis, while Starr returned to confirm he’d traced the CLB back to the very same corporation. Ash found out that Daisy hadn’t stored his telephone number next to his name in her PAN. Instead there was some random number that he didn’t recognise. It all made sense when he called the number lipsticked on the shower wall though – the random number activated a stealth tag, which we assumed Daisy was concealing about her person, and the locator on the stealth tag also pointed us towards Genesis.
It was clear we were going to head down there and kick some fucking heads in so we cruised around our apartments to tool up. Every single place had been trashed and the gift of a grenade booby trap had been left for each of us.
We assume this was done by the Triad when they came looking for us. Clearly originality is not one of their strong points!
There was nothing doing at our pads so we settled for beating the morning rush to head over to Genesis. Remoting the transit, I hit the gate hard and with all of us clustered in Drifter’s Americar, he ramped us up the steps, through the plate glass and into the lobby. Startled security guards are no match for pissed off professionals and we were past them and following the locator beacon fixed on Daisy’s Stealth Tag before they had time to sound an alarm.
We’d learnt that Genesis had only just acquired extraterritoriality but we weren’t expecting to find their HQ building an empty shell. The place was all but devoid of life. Clearly the Corp was in the process of moving in – everything was still shrouded in bubblewrap and protective polythene and bar those corpses in the lobby there was not a guard, nor an employee to be seen. We made five floors before the CLB spirit appeared out of nowhere and started laying in to us. It was a desperate fight and if I’m honest, I think it was only weight of numbers that helped us succeed. Just like before we had to literally beat the shit out of it, flay the skin from its hide and turn it white with fear before it disappeared. Fighting spirits is so unsatisfying – how do you know when you’ve geeked the damn thing and it isn’t going to come back?!
Anyway I digress, needless to say, we made the top floor without any further interruptions and it was freaky drek central in the penthouse. Daisy was sitting in some sort of bondage contraption with her head wrenched back and drips of liquid silver pooling on her forehead and running off down her face. Ash and the others claimed they could see the shimmering form of a woman, stood behind and slightly to one side pouring that drek on to the girl. I couldn’t see it, but Ash evidently saw enough to take confident aim.
That huge boomstick of his roared once, twice and the body of Solace slumped to the ground. Course, she’s supposed to have died once before so we did one, sharpish, grabbing Daisy and buggering off pronto.
We know curiosity killed the cat but we couldn’t help scoping out the basement level before we left and it was there that we made our big revelation. Computers and other equipment branded with the Cross Applied Technologies logo made it clear that the Corp was being reborn as Genesis.
Regular readers will know we have something of a grudge against CAT so we couldn’t just stand by and let this happen. Fortunately Glyph still had plenty of those explosive charges left in her satchel. As we drove away watching the complex sag down into its own basement, we felt a certain sense of grim satisfaction. If Cross are being resurrected maybe all that Allisom nonsense isn’t over either… We’ll muse on it during the flight back to Atlanta.
Mood: Satisfied. Daisy is safe. Ash is happy. But Cross have Blake AGAIN…
Ends: 2/2>
||
Select Region: Region=SanFrancisco>
Call SubDir: SanFrancisco/WeBlogs>
Select Blog: Author=V.Six>
Initializing…>
Entry 24: 20.07.70>
Revelations and retribution overnight – in roughly equal measure. Again I’m feeling calmer now that we’ve taken action, made a stand, and done something proactive to look out for our own rather than sitting back and letting life happen to us.
Glyph, Ash and I hauled ass down to the airport and took delivery of the little turboprop plane I’d leased for the flight into San Fran. The whole city was shrouded in fog but good to his word, Drifter was waiting for us when we touched down – when you know you’re walking into trouble it pays to have as many friends as possible watching your back.
Wasting little time, we blazed right on over to Daisy’s and did a cautious little recce. Our suspicions were raised that someone was mooching around inside – Drifter covered the front and Glyph headed for the rear while Ash and I made our way inside. Man I felt for Ash as we crept across the blackened remains of his sister’s lounge. Some sort of freak ass explosion had made the room bulge outwards, literally pushing every single item as far up against the walls as it would go. I made my way into the bathroom, covering the hallway as Ash crept down to surprise the lurker. I only heard one shot – Ash drilling the little toad – and it was a good job he’d controlled his temper enough to use Stick Shock because the intruder was prettied up with a Lone Star badge proclaiming him to be part of some sort of Occult Investigator. While Ash made with the thumbscrews, hot coals and whatever else passes for torture and interrogation in a young woman’s kitchen, I switched on the lights and found that Daisy had been graffiti-ing the tiles in her shower with lippy. The phone number got me through to some Corp-line with an automated switchboard. Clearly Daisy had tried to send us a message but I couldn’t make head nor tail of it.
Fortunately, Ash was a bit more savvy. The Occult Investigator was a dwarf by the name of Glyn Boucher who was investigating the activity of a Spirit of Man. Daisy’s place had all the clues that pointed to this spirit’s involvement apparently but the only lead Boucher could share with us was a suspicion that a recently elevated Corp called Genesis had some sort of tenuous involvement. Having learnt that there’s no point pissing off Lone Star unnecessarily, Ash let him go and we pooled our ideas.
Glyph had managed to retrieve some video feed from Daisy’s front door and that showed Daisy and Blake being bundled out of the flat by the same spirit-creature we’d faced at April Walkers talismongery in Birmingham, Alabama. Creepy Little Bastard. Realising we’d need a mage to have any hope of tracking a spirit, we picked one at random from the White Pages – dude by the name of Starr who seemed to have all the right professional credentials.
Ash set to work on Daisy’s little conundrum to see if he could fathom out what the hell clue she’d tried to leave us.
Continues: 1/2>
|| >
It was about then that several things started to come together and point in the same direction for us. Lone Star’s finest had tipped us off to his suspicions about Genesis, while Starr returned to confirm he’d traced the CLB back to the very same corporation. Ash found out that Daisy hadn’t stored his telephone number next to his name in her PAN. Instead there was some random number that he didn’t recognise. It all made sense when he called the number lipsticked on the shower wall though – the random number activated a stealth tag, which we assumed Daisy was concealing about her person, and the locator on the stealth tag also pointed us towards Genesis.
It was clear we were going to head down there and kick some fucking heads in so we cruised around our apartments to tool up. Every single place had been trashed and the gift of a grenade booby trap had been left for each of us.
We assume this was done by the Triad when they came looking for us. Clearly originality is not one of their strong points!
There was nothing doing at our pads so we settled for beating the morning rush to head over to Genesis. Remoting the transit, I hit the gate hard and with all of us clustered in Drifter’s Americar, he ramped us up the steps, through the plate glass and into the lobby. Startled security guards are no match for pissed off professionals and we were past them and following the locator beacon fixed on Daisy’s Stealth Tag before they had time to sound an alarm.
We’d learnt that Genesis had only just acquired extraterritoriality but we weren’t expecting to find their HQ building an empty shell. The place was all but devoid of life. Clearly the Corp was in the process of moving in – everything was still shrouded in bubblewrap and protective polythene and bar those corpses in the lobby there was not a guard, nor an employee to be seen. We made five floors before the CLB spirit appeared out of nowhere and started laying in to us. It was a desperate fight and if I’m honest, I think it was only weight of numbers that helped us succeed. Just like before we had to literally beat the shit out of it, flay the skin from its hide and turn it white with fear before it disappeared. Fighting spirits is so unsatisfying – how do you know when you’ve geeked the damn thing and it isn’t going to come back?!
Anyway I digress, needless to say, we made the top floor without any further interruptions and it was freaky drek central in the penthouse. Daisy was sitting in some sort of bondage contraption with her head wrenched back and drips of liquid silver pooling on her forehead and running off down her face. Ash and the others claimed they could see the shimmering form of a woman, stood behind and slightly to one side pouring that drek on to the girl. I couldn’t see it, but Ash evidently saw enough to take confident aim.
That huge boomstick of his roared once, twice and the body of Solace slumped to the ground. Course, she’s supposed to have died once before so we did one, sharpish, grabbing Daisy and buggering off pronto.
We know curiosity killed the cat but we couldn’t help scoping out the basement level before we left and it was there that we made our big revelation. Computers and other equipment branded with the Cross Applied Technologies logo made it clear that the Corp was being reborn as Genesis.
Regular readers will know we have something of a grudge against CAT so we couldn’t just stand by and let this happen. Fortunately Glyph still had plenty of those explosive charges left in her satchel. As we drove away watching the complex sag down into its own basement, we felt a certain sense of grim satisfaction. If Cross are being resurrected maybe all that Allisom nonsense isn’t over either… We’ll muse on it during the flight back to Atlanta.
Mood: Satisfied. Daisy is safe. Ash is happy. But Cross have Blake AGAIN…
Ends: 2/2>
||
Friday, November 24, 2006
Rescue Daisy
Drifter, Glyph, Ash, Six.
Wednesday 19th July 2070
The runners headed back to San Francisco in a private hired plane for one night only to track down Ash’s sister Daisy. Glyph had tagged along too.
Landing in a fogged out San Fran the runners met up with Drifter who had been phoned ahead to see if he could help them out. He was at a loose end and was more than happy to join the hunt for Daisy.
The runners went straight round to Daisy’s house and found that there had been some kind of explosion in the front room. They also found someone mooching around upstairs. Ash snuck up and took him down with a well aimed stick shock round.
The man was a dwarf, and when they looked in his wallet they discovered that his name was Glyn Boucher and he was an occult investigator with some kind of Lone Star badge. He also had a strange pin badge with a half moon with an eye in the centre, and a 5 pointed star above. While they waited for him to come round they had a hunt around the house for other clues. All they found was Daisy’s comlink, and a phone number hastily scrawled on the bathroom wall in red lipstick.
Ash waited for the occult investigator to come round and when he did began to question him. It turns out he was investigating an illegal magical disturbance which originated from the toxic spirit of man which took Daisy and Ash. They had a long chat which helped Ash understand what was going on a bit better, and in the end Glyn Boucher was let go.
The runners got video feed of the spirit of man which had manifested and forced Daisy and Blake out of the house. They then decided to try and track the spirits astral signature by employing a freelance magician called Star.
They then decided to call the number that Daisy had scrawled on the bathroom wall and found that it was an automated help line for a Stealth RFID tag activation service. They spent a good amount of time trying to figure what the password is to activate the tag before Ash found that Daisy had changed his phone number in her pan to a 5 character pin number. They keyed in the number and a stealth tag was activated which was in a corporate HQ for Genesis.
The runners headed round to their apartments to grab some gear. Each of them found that their apartments had been turned over, valuables smashed or stolen, small grenade booby traps had been left for each of them. Ash was the only one to get caught out. The others were aware of the risks after Ash’s apartment. They salvaged what they could, and Ash presented Six with a belated birthday present which had sat in San Fran awaiting their return for nearly 2 weeks. They took what they could and pressed on with tracking down Daisy.
On route to genesis the runners were contacted by Star who confirmed that he had followed the astral signatures of Daisy, Blake and the Spirit of man to the Genesis corporation but was being stopped from going in by some kind of mage barrier. The runners thanked him and told him that they needed no more help at the moment.
Arriving at the scene the runners found a new corporation taking over an existing building. The Genesis sign was brand new, and there were few people inside, a few security guards at most.
They thought that it would be the best time to strike now, even though the sun was coming up and Drifter drove his Ford Americar through the Plas-Glass doors into the lobby. Guards scrambled to get out of the way of the vehicle and the showering glass.
The runners decamped and dealt with the security in short order. They then headed up the stairs at speed to get to Daisy. Each floor was deserted, save for new computer terminals left to be set up on new desks still wrapped in polythene.
They were attacked at about the 5th floor by the Spirit of Man which fought them before at April Walkers Talismonger shop. The runners again beat back the spirit and pressed on up to the top floor. They found Daisy bound to some kind of sacrificial device, her head wrenched back, a mercury-esq liquid dripping to her forehead. Looking closer they could make out the near invisible shimmering form of a woman, her hand outstretched over Daisy’s head pouring the metallic liquid onto Ash’s sister.
The runners swung into action, but Ash was taking no prisoners, and blasted the woman with his pump shotgun. She dropped to the floor lifeless. It was Solace.
Daisy was okay, and the runners made their way out, but they weren’t sure that they had worked out what was going on and decided to stay and find out some more. They made their way down to the basement levels, and they found a lab that was in the process of being set up. It seems that Genesis was being re-born from Cross Applied. Their hardware was still packaged in the bowels of Genesis corporation.
They decided to kick Cross Applied again, and rigged up plastic explosive in the lab area, and attached the rest to supporting beams.
Driving away they detonated the charges, and were pleased to see the internal structure of the Genesis HQ slump inward as the buildings backbone was broken. The runners blazed.
Drifter told the runners that he would stay in San Francisco to keep an eye on the Triad activities, he hadn’t been bothered by them so far and was sure he could keep out of their books. Six and Ash headed back to the airfield with Daisy and flew back to Atlanta.
Wednesday 19th July 2070
The runners headed back to San Francisco in a private hired plane for one night only to track down Ash’s sister Daisy. Glyph had tagged along too.
Landing in a fogged out San Fran the runners met up with Drifter who had been phoned ahead to see if he could help them out. He was at a loose end and was more than happy to join the hunt for Daisy.
The runners went straight round to Daisy’s house and found that there had been some kind of explosion in the front room. They also found someone mooching around upstairs. Ash snuck up and took him down with a well aimed stick shock round.
The man was a dwarf, and when they looked in his wallet they discovered that his name was Glyn Boucher and he was an occult investigator with some kind of Lone Star badge. He also had a strange pin badge with a half moon with an eye in the centre, and a 5 pointed star above. While they waited for him to come round they had a hunt around the house for other clues. All they found was Daisy’s comlink, and a phone number hastily scrawled on the bathroom wall in red lipstick.
Ash waited for the occult investigator to come round and when he did began to question him. It turns out he was investigating an illegal magical disturbance which originated from the toxic spirit of man which took Daisy and Ash. They had a long chat which helped Ash understand what was going on a bit better, and in the end Glyn Boucher was let go.
The runners got video feed of the spirit of man which had manifested and forced Daisy and Blake out of the house. They then decided to try and track the spirits astral signature by employing a freelance magician called Star.
They then decided to call the number that Daisy had scrawled on the bathroom wall and found that it was an automated help line for a Stealth RFID tag activation service. They spent a good amount of time trying to figure what the password is to activate the tag before Ash found that Daisy had changed his phone number in her pan to a 5 character pin number. They keyed in the number and a stealth tag was activated which was in a corporate HQ for Genesis.
The runners headed round to their apartments to grab some gear. Each of them found that their apartments had been turned over, valuables smashed or stolen, small grenade booby traps had been left for each of them. Ash was the only one to get caught out. The others were aware of the risks after Ash’s apartment. They salvaged what they could, and Ash presented Six with a belated birthday present which had sat in San Fran awaiting their return for nearly 2 weeks. They took what they could and pressed on with tracking down Daisy.
On route to genesis the runners were contacted by Star who confirmed that he had followed the astral signatures of Daisy, Blake and the Spirit of man to the Genesis corporation but was being stopped from going in by some kind of mage barrier. The runners thanked him and told him that they needed no more help at the moment.
Arriving at the scene the runners found a new corporation taking over an existing building. The Genesis sign was brand new, and there were few people inside, a few security guards at most.
They thought that it would be the best time to strike now, even though the sun was coming up and Drifter drove his Ford Americar through the Plas-Glass doors into the lobby. Guards scrambled to get out of the way of the vehicle and the showering glass.
The runners decamped and dealt with the security in short order. They then headed up the stairs at speed to get to Daisy. Each floor was deserted, save for new computer terminals left to be set up on new desks still wrapped in polythene.
They were attacked at about the 5th floor by the Spirit of Man which fought them before at April Walkers Talismonger shop. The runners again beat back the spirit and pressed on up to the top floor. They found Daisy bound to some kind of sacrificial device, her head wrenched back, a mercury-esq liquid dripping to her forehead. Looking closer they could make out the near invisible shimmering form of a woman, her hand outstretched over Daisy’s head pouring the metallic liquid onto Ash’s sister.
The runners swung into action, but Ash was taking no prisoners, and blasted the woman with his pump shotgun. She dropped to the floor lifeless. It was Solace.
Daisy was okay, and the runners made their way out, but they weren’t sure that they had worked out what was going on and decided to stay and find out some more. They made their way down to the basement levels, and they found a lab that was in the process of being set up. It seems that Genesis was being re-born from Cross Applied. Their hardware was still packaged in the bowels of Genesis corporation.
They decided to kick Cross Applied again, and rigged up plastic explosive in the lab area, and attached the rest to supporting beams.
Driving away they detonated the charges, and were pleased to see the internal structure of the Genesis HQ slump inward as the buildings backbone was broken. The runners blazed.
Drifter told the runners that he would stay in San Francisco to keep an eye on the Triad activities, he hadn’t been bothered by them so far and was sure he could keep out of their books. Six and Ash headed back to the airfield with Daisy and flew back to Atlanta.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Six's Blog
By N.Barnes
Call Dir: Shadownet/ShadowlandsBBS/>
Select Region: Region=SanFrancisco>
Call SubDir: SanFrancisco/WeBlogs>
Select Blog: Author=V.Six>
Initializing…>
Entry 23: 19.07.70>
Dunklezahn’s Balls! It’s happened again! We’ve been screwed, again, and this time by Nunzio’s boy Carlo! Goddamnit… It broke down like this. By the time Orange Jay had deposited us back in Birmingham, Alabama, it was about 9pm.
Ash was still sweating about being out of contact with Daisy so I rang Nunzio and asked him to send some of his boys over to check things out. We had a couple of beers while we were waiting but even the edge of inebriation couldn’t soften the blow when Nunzio reported in that Daisy was missing from her apartment and there had clearly been a struggle.
Understandably, Ash was all for heading straight back to San Fran until I pointed out that it was a road trip of several days back across country.
Instead, I talked him into heading back to Atlanta with me where we could arrange to have a charter plane waiting for us so we could make a quick overnight jaunt back to the Bay Area. He could see the plane was quicker and made more sense, so agreed to do it my way. En route back to Atlanta, Carlo called to say he had set up a meet with a buyer for the guns. We were going to just make it back to Atlanta in time so it seemed prudent to attend before catching our flight. How could we know it would turn out to be a mistake?!
We drove the wagon load of hookey shooters to an abandoned industrial park for a 1am meet and were joined by Carlo and his muscle – a runner named Hilt. In due course, a motor and two transits cruised up and Mr Cowboy himself, Johnny Kickback, lazily hauled his ass out of the driver’s seat and came on over for a chat. He reckoned the guns were his – obviously the Yakuza hit we interrupted was their attempt to spoke his wheel – and didn’t seem to care about the circumstances under which they entered our possession. I told him about the Yaks, pointed out that without our intervention the guns would be a couple of hundred miles away and offered to return them for a small consideration – a finder’s fee, if you will. Well, that just seemed to wind him all the way up to inarticulate rage. He spat out that we had been a thorn in his side for too long, drew down and just started shooting.
I scrambled for cover in the back of the wagon while Ash gave the Cowboy a gutful of hot lead slug. I didn’t see it myself but apparently that was when Carlo turned on Ash and shot him with one of our own guns! Cheeky feck!
Carlo had clearly decided there was a brighter future for him in Johnny Kickback’s employment but fortunately, Hilt has a conscience… Hey, I guess that makes him our kind of Runner! Carlo had told Hilt they were there to sell the guns and make sure nothing went wrong. Clearly Hilt felt that everyone shooting at Ash and I counted as something having gone wrong. As the Cowboy’s friendly neighbourhood muscle lumbered from the vans, Hilt picked a side. Ours.
While Hilt moved off to draw fire away from the unconscious Ash, I did the only thing I could and remoted the Dodge into a position from which I could offer supporting fire. I took care of Carlo as he tried to frag me then concentrated fire on the petrol tank of the transit. I saw it blow, catch the Cowboy’s car before he could escape and the secondary explosion from that was enough to topple the second van. His goons were toast but Hilt said there was no sign of Kickback in the wreckage of his burned out car…
Continues: 1/2>
|| >
We didn’t have time for mysteries; I just wanted to get the frag away from there. We blazed to the other side of the industrial estate where we could lay low long enough to patch Ash up and give Nunzio a mouthful of abuse for his sell-out staff. I don’t think he knew. Hard to tell with Nunz but I think he was genuinely surprised and hacked off that Carlo would turn his back on the family and compromise our safety.
Either way, he picked up where Carlo had left off and made moves to buy the guns from us himself for the family to use. I took a risk and told Nunzio we were heading back into San Fran. He didn’t push that either – I think he understood that with Ash’ sister missing, there was sufficient personal interest for us to justify heading back into the city against his express warning.
We’ve just handed over the guns to Nunzio’s buyer and taken payment. We’re going to cruise over to the Safehouse and give Ki-rinn, Sickle and Glyph a heads up that it might be time to find new digs. Hilt is apparently a San Fran native so by way of thanks for his help, we’re going to take him on the flight back with us. I’d like one of the others to come with us as back-up too but Ash and I are intending to head back to Atlanta so it might serve our purpose better if a couple of the guys stay with the vehicles and use the time while we are away to find us a safe Safehouse!
On a more positive note, as I mull things over, it occurs to me that we’re probably not going to have to do the Cowboy’s dirty work and fabricate the death of April Walker and Snow to lay a false trail for the Separatist Shamans now. Still no word from Snow though which remains a concern. I just feel exhausted by the bullet train of events we’ve been riding. It shows no sign of slowing, so here’s to Johnny Kickback! May his soul burn in Hell.
Mood: Numb.
Ends: 2/2>
||
Call Dir: Shadownet/ShadowlandsBBS/>
Select Region: Region=SanFrancisco>
Call SubDir: SanFrancisco/WeBlogs>
Select Blog: Author=V.Six>
Initializing…>
Entry 23: 19.07.70>
Dunklezahn’s Balls! It’s happened again! We’ve been screwed, again, and this time by Nunzio’s boy Carlo! Goddamnit… It broke down like this. By the time Orange Jay had deposited us back in Birmingham, Alabama, it was about 9pm.
Ash was still sweating about being out of contact with Daisy so I rang Nunzio and asked him to send some of his boys over to check things out. We had a couple of beers while we were waiting but even the edge of inebriation couldn’t soften the blow when Nunzio reported in that Daisy was missing from her apartment and there had clearly been a struggle.
Understandably, Ash was all for heading straight back to San Fran until I pointed out that it was a road trip of several days back across country.
Instead, I talked him into heading back to Atlanta with me where we could arrange to have a charter plane waiting for us so we could make a quick overnight jaunt back to the Bay Area. He could see the plane was quicker and made more sense, so agreed to do it my way. En route back to Atlanta, Carlo called to say he had set up a meet with a buyer for the guns. We were going to just make it back to Atlanta in time so it seemed prudent to attend before catching our flight. How could we know it would turn out to be a mistake?!
We drove the wagon load of hookey shooters to an abandoned industrial park for a 1am meet and were joined by Carlo and his muscle – a runner named Hilt. In due course, a motor and two transits cruised up and Mr Cowboy himself, Johnny Kickback, lazily hauled his ass out of the driver’s seat and came on over for a chat. He reckoned the guns were his – obviously the Yakuza hit we interrupted was their attempt to spoke his wheel – and didn’t seem to care about the circumstances under which they entered our possession. I told him about the Yaks, pointed out that without our intervention the guns would be a couple of hundred miles away and offered to return them for a small consideration – a finder’s fee, if you will. Well, that just seemed to wind him all the way up to inarticulate rage. He spat out that we had been a thorn in his side for too long, drew down and just started shooting.
I scrambled for cover in the back of the wagon while Ash gave the Cowboy a gutful of hot lead slug. I didn’t see it myself but apparently that was when Carlo turned on Ash and shot him with one of our own guns! Cheeky feck!
Carlo had clearly decided there was a brighter future for him in Johnny Kickback’s employment but fortunately, Hilt has a conscience… Hey, I guess that makes him our kind of Runner! Carlo had told Hilt they were there to sell the guns and make sure nothing went wrong. Clearly Hilt felt that everyone shooting at Ash and I counted as something having gone wrong. As the Cowboy’s friendly neighbourhood muscle lumbered from the vans, Hilt picked a side. Ours.
While Hilt moved off to draw fire away from the unconscious Ash, I did the only thing I could and remoted the Dodge into a position from which I could offer supporting fire. I took care of Carlo as he tried to frag me then concentrated fire on the petrol tank of the transit. I saw it blow, catch the Cowboy’s car before he could escape and the secondary explosion from that was enough to topple the second van. His goons were toast but Hilt said there was no sign of Kickback in the wreckage of his burned out car…
Continues: 1/2>
|| >
We didn’t have time for mysteries; I just wanted to get the frag away from there. We blazed to the other side of the industrial estate where we could lay low long enough to patch Ash up and give Nunzio a mouthful of abuse for his sell-out staff. I don’t think he knew. Hard to tell with Nunz but I think he was genuinely surprised and hacked off that Carlo would turn his back on the family and compromise our safety.
Either way, he picked up where Carlo had left off and made moves to buy the guns from us himself for the family to use. I took a risk and told Nunzio we were heading back into San Fran. He didn’t push that either – I think he understood that with Ash’ sister missing, there was sufficient personal interest for us to justify heading back into the city against his express warning.
We’ve just handed over the guns to Nunzio’s buyer and taken payment. We’re going to cruise over to the Safehouse and give Ki-rinn, Sickle and Glyph a heads up that it might be time to find new digs. Hilt is apparently a San Fran native so by way of thanks for his help, we’re going to take him on the flight back with us. I’d like one of the others to come with us as back-up too but Ash and I are intending to head back to Atlanta so it might serve our purpose better if a couple of the guys stay with the vehicles and use the time while we are away to find us a safe Safehouse!
On a more positive note, as I mull things over, it occurs to me that we’re probably not going to have to do the Cowboy’s dirty work and fabricate the death of April Walker and Snow to lay a false trail for the Separatist Shamans now. Still no word from Snow though which remains a concern. I just feel exhausted by the bullet train of events we’ve been riding. It shows no sign of slowing, so here’s to Johnny Kickback! May his soul burn in Hell.
Mood: Numb.
Ends: 2/2>
||
Thursday, November 09, 2006
The stolen guns sell out.
Tuesday 18th July 2070 pm
Six, Hilt, Ash.
Six Ash and Ki-Rin finished up their talk with April Walker and began the drive back to Birmingham Alabama. They quizzed Jay some more on what she knew of shedim, and their brush with Alisom. She didn’t know much but she did tell them that their aura’s had been scarred and torn by their brush with the shedim and their astral presence was lit up like a beacon. If the shedim returned it would be able to find the runners very quickly. She told them that they would need to find out the spirits true name, and banish it for good if they were to be rid of it forever.
The runners fell asleep as Jay cast the spell to conceal the meeting location once again.
Waking in a bar at about 21:00 somewhere near where their cars had been left the runners tried to work out what to do next. There was still no answer from Daisy back in San Fran, so Six contacted Nunzio to see if he could see where she might have gone. Nunzio called back to say that Daisy’s flat was empty, but there was sign of some kind of explosion. Ash was keen to get back to San Fran that minute, but Six held him off warning that there was still danger for them in their home city. Six arranged for Nunzio to get his mafia goons out looking for Ash’s sister.
Carlo called. He had found a buyer for the stolen guns, and he made arrangements for a meet at 1am in an abandoned industrial estate.
Six told Ash that once they had off loaded the guns, they would hire a private plane, fly back to Frisco, and see if they could track Daisy down, ignoring Nunzio’s best efforts to keep them out of the city. Ash agreed, and they drove straight back to the safe house where Glyph and Sickle were watching the truck of guns.
Collecting the truck Six and Ash went to the meet. It was dark but in the headlights they saw Carlo’s car. He got out, and was backed up by another who was introduced to the runners as Hilt. He had been working with Carlo for a few months. They stood and talked for a bit, Carlo helped himself to one of the MP5’s, before the buyer turned up. A car, followed by two transits.
The Cowboy stepped out of the car. He smiled at Carlo and greeted him before telling the runners that they had stolen his guns and he was going to take them back. He wasn’t in the mood for Six’s bargaining and the fact that he held a gold Revolver in his direction showed his intent.
Six instinctively dove for cover as the Cowboy loosed off a shot. Ash fired at the cowboy, Carlo shot at Ash, Hilt stood there for a moment not sure who was on who’s side, before 4 goons stepped out of the transits firing a hailstorm of bullets in his and Ash’s direction. Ash was dropped after the first volley of fire but Six was able to fend off Carlo with his own pistol, while he brought the Car with mounted FN-HAR into play.
Bullets flew, and the Cowboy attempted to flee in his car while his goons plugged the runners but Six was wise to it, and carefully aimed shots at one of the transit van fuel tanks blew the van and the Cowboys car to pieces, the remaining goons perished in the fireball.
Hilt, Six and Ash patched each other up and made more formal introductions. They had no idea Carlo was about to set them up, and Hilt had no loyalties to him other than financial so they were cool.
Six phoned Nunzio and told him that they had been played by the Cowboy and Carlo, and that they were sitting on a truck load of stolen guns. Nunzio arranged for some more reliable contacts to collect the guns from them, and Nunzio paid Six himself.
Wednesday 19th July 2070 03:00
The run seemed to be off, the Johnson (The Cowboy) was dead, so Six and Ash vowed to head back to San Fran and track down Daisy. Hilt, a San Franciscan himself agreed to tag along. They headed to the private airstrip and picked up the plane that they had chartered.
Six, Hilt, Ash.
Six Ash and Ki-Rin finished up their talk with April Walker and began the drive back to Birmingham Alabama. They quizzed Jay some more on what she knew of shedim, and their brush with Alisom. She didn’t know much but she did tell them that their aura’s had been scarred and torn by their brush with the shedim and their astral presence was lit up like a beacon. If the shedim returned it would be able to find the runners very quickly. She told them that they would need to find out the spirits true name, and banish it for good if they were to be rid of it forever.
The runners fell asleep as Jay cast the spell to conceal the meeting location once again.
Waking in a bar at about 21:00 somewhere near where their cars had been left the runners tried to work out what to do next. There was still no answer from Daisy back in San Fran, so Six contacted Nunzio to see if he could see where she might have gone. Nunzio called back to say that Daisy’s flat was empty, but there was sign of some kind of explosion. Ash was keen to get back to San Fran that minute, but Six held him off warning that there was still danger for them in their home city. Six arranged for Nunzio to get his mafia goons out looking for Ash’s sister.
Carlo called. He had found a buyer for the stolen guns, and he made arrangements for a meet at 1am in an abandoned industrial estate.
Six told Ash that once they had off loaded the guns, they would hire a private plane, fly back to Frisco, and see if they could track Daisy down, ignoring Nunzio’s best efforts to keep them out of the city. Ash agreed, and they drove straight back to the safe house where Glyph and Sickle were watching the truck of guns.
Collecting the truck Six and Ash went to the meet. It was dark but in the headlights they saw Carlo’s car. He got out, and was backed up by another who was introduced to the runners as Hilt. He had been working with Carlo for a few months. They stood and talked for a bit, Carlo helped himself to one of the MP5’s, before the buyer turned up. A car, followed by two transits.
The Cowboy stepped out of the car. He smiled at Carlo and greeted him before telling the runners that they had stolen his guns and he was going to take them back. He wasn’t in the mood for Six’s bargaining and the fact that he held a gold Revolver in his direction showed his intent.
Six instinctively dove for cover as the Cowboy loosed off a shot. Ash fired at the cowboy, Carlo shot at Ash, Hilt stood there for a moment not sure who was on who’s side, before 4 goons stepped out of the transits firing a hailstorm of bullets in his and Ash’s direction. Ash was dropped after the first volley of fire but Six was able to fend off Carlo with his own pistol, while he brought the Car with mounted FN-HAR into play.
Bullets flew, and the Cowboy attempted to flee in his car while his goons plugged the runners but Six was wise to it, and carefully aimed shots at one of the transit van fuel tanks blew the van and the Cowboys car to pieces, the remaining goons perished in the fireball.
Hilt, Six and Ash patched each other up and made more formal introductions. They had no idea Carlo was about to set them up, and Hilt had no loyalties to him other than financial so they were cool.
Six phoned Nunzio and told him that they had been played by the Cowboy and Carlo, and that they were sitting on a truck load of stolen guns. Nunzio arranged for some more reliable contacts to collect the guns from them, and Nunzio paid Six himself.
Wednesday 19th July 2070 03:00
The run seemed to be off, the Johnson (The Cowboy) was dead, so Six and Ash vowed to head back to San Fran and track down Daisy. Hilt, a San Franciscan himself agreed to tag along. They headed to the private airstrip and picked up the plane that they had chartered.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Six's Blog.
By N.Barnes
Call Dir: Shadownet/ShadowlandsBBS/>
Select Region: Region=SanFrancisco>
Call SubDir: SanFrancisco/WeBlogs>
Select Blog: Author=V.Six>
Initializing…>
Entry 22: 19.07.70>
Alright, today is a better day, Today, I’m chilly. There are three reasons for that. One – I think I have a better handle on what the frag is going on out on the streets; Two, we’ve decided on a course of action that I’m happy with and we’re not just going to sit around waiting to get dicked any more and Three, Ki-rinn finally showed up. Hell, I’m first to admit Frosty and I have a fractious relationship – he hadn’t been in Atlanta 24 hours before we were at each other’s throats but damn it feels better knowing he’s watching my back too. Hell with Glyph and Sickle playing Roomie back at the Safe house, it’s getting to be like we moved the entire damn team coast to coast!
So anyways, while my brain was still frazzled and while Ash and Sickle were still trying to get their asses off of the Express and back into Atlanta, Ki-rinn made contact. He’d been chasing Skirt and Bastards with a fucked-up old army buddy over in Singapore and was on a flight path back that meant he could detour via Atlanta. I picked him up and filled him in and got myself a tight bundle of cynicism for my trouble. Frosty thinks we can’t keep our asses outta trouble without him and we’re reading way too much into the situation. Maybe he has a point.
Just about the one thing he believes least of all though is these visions from Allisom. Which meant it was a bad time to suddenly get hit by one – of Snow, in a marshalling yard, with a datadisk, getting his card punched by that laser with the high pitched whine. While my head’s still clearing, Ash gets on the phone. He had the vision too and now he’s looking out of the express train window at the self same marshalling yard. He resolves to dump the emergency brake on the train and bail out and I tell him Ki-rinn and I will blaze over there. Man Ki-rinn thinks we’re overdoing the dope. He has some valid points – there is a certain sort of devil may care lunacy to just taking these visions on faith. We don’t even know WHEN this vision is of but I tell him we’ve followed our guts on them so far and been done right by.
Trusting your gut is right out of Frosty’s Mantra of Modern Warfare. It’s something tangible he can believe in so for once he takes it on faith too.
Now the marshalling yard turns out to be an interesting place but not because it fulfils our vision. We find the warehouse soon enough and there is a welcoming committee waiting there packing heat. Thing is, they look more like manual labourers than Separatist Shaman’s or whomever the frag it is that has it in for Snow. We sit tight a while and in short order the San Fran Yakuza turn up, bold as brass, including Mr Cock of the Walk himself Yutaka Seto driving MY beloved car! Two things strike me as odd – firstly that Seto is looking to use my car out here for his own business, he isn’t just rubbing my nose in the fact that I lost the Bullet to him and secondly that these are the San Fran Yakuza – in Atlanta of all places! It’s like the entire Bay Area has been evacuated to the East Coast for the week – why are there so many familiar faces turning up out here?!
The Yaks spring a surprise on the manual labourers waiting in the warehouse and when they begin loading up crates of gear from inside, we can’t resist the opportunity to spoke their wheel and try to snatch the stuff for ourselves. Combat breaks out but we’ve got the drop on them and they aren’t quite expecting the level of trouble we bring to them. It’s short, bloody and brutal and I make sure no one sees me knocking around the place – extra trouble with the Yaks I can do without – but Ash could be in a world of hurt back home. He reckons they got a good look at him. That could incriminate me too – but I’ll have to play dumb.
Continues: 1/2>
|| >
Seto takes off so we grab the Yak truck full of merchandise and Ki-rinn and Ash blaze with it while I go back on over watch. Frag all happens at the Marshalling Yard thereafter and there’s certainly no sign of Snow. Frosty and Ash report it that we’ve struck pay dirt and picked up a wagon load of hooky guns. We cherry pick the best of the lot for ourselves and after a few heated words, brought on mostly because Ash doesn’t take kindly to me ripping the shit out of his idea that we can sell these babies on the street, I make contact with Carlo and ask him if he’s interested in taking them off of our hands and selling them on through the family. I figure if the Mafia can’t use a load of hot shooters, who can?!
Right while we’re cooling our heels, I get a call from Orange Jay, the beatnik hippy chick who was running the shop over from April Walker’s talismongery in Birmingham, Alabama. Seems Sickle didn’t meet the real April Walker after all and that just about clears up some of the confusion – evidently Sickle met the Cowboy, Johnny Kickback, who was fishing for info on the actual whereabouts of Binary Pulse. Jay tells us that April has seen through the thinly veiled charade I’d constructed for wanting to meet up with her but is willing to have a chat nevertheless. There are conditions – we have to meet Jay and travel in her unmarked, beat up Datsun. We have to accept some herbal magic tree shit that sends us right off into the land of nod – that or some sort of damn sleep spell I presume – so we lose track of the route and we get to have our PANs hacked by Binary Pulse herself so that as far as we can tell, the lakeside cabin where we hook up is actually at the North Pole… Neat.
A long and in-depth conversation ensues at the meet and I’ve no intention of boring you with too many details. Suffice to say the key points are that a Free Spirit is looking to find and kill Binary Pulse and her team because of a run in which they learnt its true name. That gives them some kind of hoochie koochie power over said spirit apparently. Last April knew, the spirit was masquerading as her dead team mate Solace. Maybe Johnny Kickback is another incarnation of this spirit or working for it to ice April – either way, he’s bad news too. Worse, now that we’ve hacked April’s computer, the files we’ve all downloaded to our PANs could make us targets for this spirit too. Daisy is almost certainly in a lot of trouble. Jay tells us our ‘auras are bleeding into the Astral’ which goes right over my head. It sounds bad though and apparently could be responsible for the visions we’ve been having. Something else to curse the name of Allisom for.
We also confirm that Shift is Snow by another name and that means to complete our run, we’d have to give up April and Snow…
Now none of us are keen on that. April has been very helpful and well, professional courtesy and a budding friendship means we aren’t going to give up Snow on a whim. So we’re faced with another botched run and I am not a happy lad. It almost spills over into an open argument at that point but I manage to talk Ki-rinn and Ash round. Rather than just binning another run and taking another hit on our reputation, I argue that there’s a way we can justify our pay without giving up April and Snow. Ki-rinn produces the memory foam face mask disguise kit he’s been sitting on for the last few runs and we take a scan of April’s face figuring that this spirit didn’t know Kote was dead so it won’t know the truth if we fake April’s death at some future point. We’re in no rush – we weren’t given a time limit, so we can afford to wait for a prime opportunity. If we can just get hold of Snow, we can explain the whole gig to him and set up something similar. We’ll then hand over the info that the team of runners is long since dead and Bob’s your Uncle, Fanny’s your Aunt.
Now, if we could only get hold of Snow…
Mood: Concerned.
Ends: 2/2>
||
Call Dir: Shadownet/ShadowlandsBBS/>
Select Region: Region=SanFrancisco>
Call SubDir: SanFrancisco/WeBlogs>
Select Blog: Author=V.Six>
Initializing…>
Entry 22: 19.07.70>
Alright, today is a better day, Today, I’m chilly. There are three reasons for that. One – I think I have a better handle on what the frag is going on out on the streets; Two, we’ve decided on a course of action that I’m happy with and we’re not just going to sit around waiting to get dicked any more and Three, Ki-rinn finally showed up. Hell, I’m first to admit Frosty and I have a fractious relationship – he hadn’t been in Atlanta 24 hours before we were at each other’s throats but damn it feels better knowing he’s watching my back too. Hell with Glyph and Sickle playing Roomie back at the Safe house, it’s getting to be like we moved the entire damn team coast to coast!
So anyways, while my brain was still frazzled and while Ash and Sickle were still trying to get their asses off of the Express and back into Atlanta, Ki-rinn made contact. He’d been chasing Skirt and Bastards with a fucked-up old army buddy over in Singapore and was on a flight path back that meant he could detour via Atlanta. I picked him up and filled him in and got myself a tight bundle of cynicism for my trouble. Frosty thinks we can’t keep our asses outta trouble without him and we’re reading way too much into the situation. Maybe he has a point.
Just about the one thing he believes least of all though is these visions from Allisom. Which meant it was a bad time to suddenly get hit by one – of Snow, in a marshalling yard, with a datadisk, getting his card punched by that laser with the high pitched whine. While my head’s still clearing, Ash gets on the phone. He had the vision too and now he’s looking out of the express train window at the self same marshalling yard. He resolves to dump the emergency brake on the train and bail out and I tell him Ki-rinn and I will blaze over there. Man Ki-rinn thinks we’re overdoing the dope. He has some valid points – there is a certain sort of devil may care lunacy to just taking these visions on faith. We don’t even know WHEN this vision is of but I tell him we’ve followed our guts on them so far and been done right by.
Trusting your gut is right out of Frosty’s Mantra of Modern Warfare. It’s something tangible he can believe in so for once he takes it on faith too.
Now the marshalling yard turns out to be an interesting place but not because it fulfils our vision. We find the warehouse soon enough and there is a welcoming committee waiting there packing heat. Thing is, they look more like manual labourers than Separatist Shaman’s or whomever the frag it is that has it in for Snow. We sit tight a while and in short order the San Fran Yakuza turn up, bold as brass, including Mr Cock of the Walk himself Yutaka Seto driving MY beloved car! Two things strike me as odd – firstly that Seto is looking to use my car out here for his own business, he isn’t just rubbing my nose in the fact that I lost the Bullet to him and secondly that these are the San Fran Yakuza – in Atlanta of all places! It’s like the entire Bay Area has been evacuated to the East Coast for the week – why are there so many familiar faces turning up out here?!
The Yaks spring a surprise on the manual labourers waiting in the warehouse and when they begin loading up crates of gear from inside, we can’t resist the opportunity to spoke their wheel and try to snatch the stuff for ourselves. Combat breaks out but we’ve got the drop on them and they aren’t quite expecting the level of trouble we bring to them. It’s short, bloody and brutal and I make sure no one sees me knocking around the place – extra trouble with the Yaks I can do without – but Ash could be in a world of hurt back home. He reckons they got a good look at him. That could incriminate me too – but I’ll have to play dumb.
Continues: 1/2>
|| >
Seto takes off so we grab the Yak truck full of merchandise and Ki-rinn and Ash blaze with it while I go back on over watch. Frag all happens at the Marshalling Yard thereafter and there’s certainly no sign of Snow. Frosty and Ash report it that we’ve struck pay dirt and picked up a wagon load of hooky guns. We cherry pick the best of the lot for ourselves and after a few heated words, brought on mostly because Ash doesn’t take kindly to me ripping the shit out of his idea that we can sell these babies on the street, I make contact with Carlo and ask him if he’s interested in taking them off of our hands and selling them on through the family. I figure if the Mafia can’t use a load of hot shooters, who can?!
Right while we’re cooling our heels, I get a call from Orange Jay, the beatnik hippy chick who was running the shop over from April Walker’s talismongery in Birmingham, Alabama. Seems Sickle didn’t meet the real April Walker after all and that just about clears up some of the confusion – evidently Sickle met the Cowboy, Johnny Kickback, who was fishing for info on the actual whereabouts of Binary Pulse. Jay tells us that April has seen through the thinly veiled charade I’d constructed for wanting to meet up with her but is willing to have a chat nevertheless. There are conditions – we have to meet Jay and travel in her unmarked, beat up Datsun. We have to accept some herbal magic tree shit that sends us right off into the land of nod – that or some sort of damn sleep spell I presume – so we lose track of the route and we get to have our PANs hacked by Binary Pulse herself so that as far as we can tell, the lakeside cabin where we hook up is actually at the North Pole… Neat.
A long and in-depth conversation ensues at the meet and I’ve no intention of boring you with too many details. Suffice to say the key points are that a Free Spirit is looking to find and kill Binary Pulse and her team because of a run in which they learnt its true name. That gives them some kind of hoochie koochie power over said spirit apparently. Last April knew, the spirit was masquerading as her dead team mate Solace. Maybe Johnny Kickback is another incarnation of this spirit or working for it to ice April – either way, he’s bad news too. Worse, now that we’ve hacked April’s computer, the files we’ve all downloaded to our PANs could make us targets for this spirit too. Daisy is almost certainly in a lot of trouble. Jay tells us our ‘auras are bleeding into the Astral’ which goes right over my head. It sounds bad though and apparently could be responsible for the visions we’ve been having. Something else to curse the name of Allisom for.
We also confirm that Shift is Snow by another name and that means to complete our run, we’d have to give up April and Snow…
Now none of us are keen on that. April has been very helpful and well, professional courtesy and a budding friendship means we aren’t going to give up Snow on a whim. So we’re faced with another botched run and I am not a happy lad. It almost spills over into an open argument at that point but I manage to talk Ki-rinn and Ash round. Rather than just binning another run and taking another hit on our reputation, I argue that there’s a way we can justify our pay without giving up April and Snow. Ki-rinn produces the memory foam face mask disguise kit he’s been sitting on for the last few runs and we take a scan of April’s face figuring that this spirit didn’t know Kote was dead so it won’t know the truth if we fake April’s death at some future point. We’re in no rush – we weren’t given a time limit, so we can afford to wait for a prime opportunity. If we can just get hold of Snow, we can explain the whole gig to him and set up something similar. We’ll then hand over the info that the team of runners is long since dead and Bob’s your Uncle, Fanny’s your Aunt.
Now, if we could only get hold of Snow…
Mood: Concerned.
Ends: 2/2>
||
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Meeting April Turner. Yakuza and Guns.
Ash, Ki-Rin, Six.
Tuesday 18th July 2070
Ki-Rin had been overseas helping one of his contacts for a few weeks, but as he flew back towards UCAS airspace, his comlink pinged with a few messages; one was from Six warning of possible trouble, so Ki-Rin gave him a call. Six gave him a very rough outline of the situation and Ki-Rin decided to join the party.
Ash and Sickle were en-route to Charleston on the east coast express train. Six was on his way back to Atlanta in his car after chasing Binary Pulse/The Cowboy.
The runners were hit with another vision. Snow again, this time he was at a warehouse in a train marshalling yard. He handed over a microdisk to someone unseen, and then there was a high-pitched whining sound and then the vision ended.
Ash blinked as the train made it’s way through a marshalling yard. Ash saw the same warehouse that he had seen in the vision. Ash phoned Six and told him that he had located the location of the marshalling yard and that he will be back in about 4 hours once he had got on a train to make the return journey.
In the meantime Six gave Ki-Rin a detained run down of all that had happened so far. Ki-Rin was sceptical of these visions, which he himself had not been having while overseas, but he took a look at all of the footage that the runners had gathered and gave his opinion of what might be going on.
They eventually decided to meet up with Ash at the train yard, and when the return train Ash was on came near to the yard, he jammed on the emergency brake. After the train had rapidly decelerated, Ash leapt out and went to ground until the fat controller gave up the chase.
Six and Ki-Rin drove past the warehouse and saw a pair of goons stood at the rear of the building near a door. Ash walked past the front and saw that the roller shutter door was half open. He suggested that Six sent the Flyspy in to have a look about. There were three yard workers inside who seemed to be waiting for something or someone.
The runners chose to wait and see what happened and enjoyed a quiet smoke of their preferred brand.
Half an hour or so passed and then the Yakuza turned up. A transit van pulled round to the roller shutter door. Six’s old muscle car headed round toward the rear. That meant that Yutaka Seto, the Yakuza Oyoban’s son was here. They came equipped for action, and went into the warehouse guns blazing. They had clearly come for hostages, using stick shock rounds to drop the warehouse guys. They quickly bundled one of them into the transit for questioning. The Yakuza came for the crates though, and as soon as the warehouse was clear they brought up a curtainsider and began to load the crates in.
The runners were holding a watching brief, and as soon as they saw the crates were loaded with weapons and munitions, they decided that they were going to take the lot. Moving in close, the runners waited for the Yakuza to load up all of the crates before attacking.
The gunfight was fast and short lived, Seto was able to make a break for it, clocking a good look at Ash before being forced to flee under a hail of bullets, and the runners quickly secured their load and drove away with 100+ guns and ammo to suit.
Six calmly parked up and waited for Snow to turn up while Ash and Ki-Rin looked at making moves at selling on the weapons that they themselves hadn’t laid claim to. Eventually Six contacted Carlo to see if he was interested in the weapons and Carlo said that he would come back to him.
While Six waited he received a phone call. From the woman from Orange Jays, the hippy shop he had left his contact details at. The woman on the phone named herself as Jay and said that April was prepared to meet up with them. She implied that they already knew what Six was really after and Six guessed that April had put to use her long time learned Decking skills to have a poke around in Six’s past.
Without a better lead Six agreed to the meet and the three of them headed back to Birmingham (Alabama). The truck full of weapons was left in the care of Glyph and Sickle.
Jay, met with the runners and told them that they would have to ride in her jeep, so that she could protect April’s hiding place, and once en-route she case sleep on them. Waking some hours later, the runners were understandably annoyed at being magicked, but they found themselves at the side of a large lake surrounded by woodland. Jay, and a slight attractive woman in her forties stood talking by a Ford Americar.
Jay cam across and told the runners that she had studied their auras and had seen that they had been damaged somehow. That essence was leaking into the astral plane and that they should be experiencing vivid dreams and other connections to the spiritual world.
Then, April came across and told them that she wanted to warn them of the trouble that they were getting involved with. She used to be a runner and her old team had broken up after a run had gone sour. The team’s mage, a girl called Solace had been taken by a free sprit that they were trying to banish and the rest of the team took her loss badly.
Now it seemed that the spirit was back in the form of Solace, wanting to find all in that team who knew it’s real name, the only thing that had power over a spirit.
The runners listened and then got back to the job in hand. They had been paid to find 3 people. One was already dead. One was Snow, their contact. And one turned out to be a charming woman who just wanted to settle into a quiet life. The runners weren’t prepared to hand them over to their employer, but at the same time they were fully aware that they had jacked far too many runs lately and that another DNF would harm their reputations irreparably. The runners decided to make moves at handing over faked info. They would stage some kind of death of April and Snow, and although the details hadn’t been worked out yet they took a face mask of April to use on some other poor sap they would kill.
The runners got back into the Jeep with Jay, who began to drive them back to town.
TBC…
Tuesday 18th July 2070
Ki-Rin had been overseas helping one of his contacts for a few weeks, but as he flew back towards UCAS airspace, his comlink pinged with a few messages; one was from Six warning of possible trouble, so Ki-Rin gave him a call. Six gave him a very rough outline of the situation and Ki-Rin decided to join the party.
Ash and Sickle were en-route to Charleston on the east coast express train. Six was on his way back to Atlanta in his car after chasing Binary Pulse/The Cowboy.
The runners were hit with another vision. Snow again, this time he was at a warehouse in a train marshalling yard. He handed over a microdisk to someone unseen, and then there was a high-pitched whining sound and then the vision ended.
Ash blinked as the train made it’s way through a marshalling yard. Ash saw the same warehouse that he had seen in the vision. Ash phoned Six and told him that he had located the location of the marshalling yard and that he will be back in about 4 hours once he had got on a train to make the return journey.
In the meantime Six gave Ki-Rin a detained run down of all that had happened so far. Ki-Rin was sceptical of these visions, which he himself had not been having while overseas, but he took a look at all of the footage that the runners had gathered and gave his opinion of what might be going on.
They eventually decided to meet up with Ash at the train yard, and when the return train Ash was on came near to the yard, he jammed on the emergency brake. After the train had rapidly decelerated, Ash leapt out and went to ground until the fat controller gave up the chase.
Six and Ki-Rin drove past the warehouse and saw a pair of goons stood at the rear of the building near a door. Ash walked past the front and saw that the roller shutter door was half open. He suggested that Six sent the Flyspy in to have a look about. There were three yard workers inside who seemed to be waiting for something or someone.
The runners chose to wait and see what happened and enjoyed a quiet smoke of their preferred brand.
Half an hour or so passed and then the Yakuza turned up. A transit van pulled round to the roller shutter door. Six’s old muscle car headed round toward the rear. That meant that Yutaka Seto, the Yakuza Oyoban’s son was here. They came equipped for action, and went into the warehouse guns blazing. They had clearly come for hostages, using stick shock rounds to drop the warehouse guys. They quickly bundled one of them into the transit for questioning. The Yakuza came for the crates though, and as soon as the warehouse was clear they brought up a curtainsider and began to load the crates in.
The runners were holding a watching brief, and as soon as they saw the crates were loaded with weapons and munitions, they decided that they were going to take the lot. Moving in close, the runners waited for the Yakuza to load up all of the crates before attacking.
The gunfight was fast and short lived, Seto was able to make a break for it, clocking a good look at Ash before being forced to flee under a hail of bullets, and the runners quickly secured their load and drove away with 100+ guns and ammo to suit.
Six calmly parked up and waited for Snow to turn up while Ash and Ki-Rin looked at making moves at selling on the weapons that they themselves hadn’t laid claim to. Eventually Six contacted Carlo to see if he was interested in the weapons and Carlo said that he would come back to him.
While Six waited he received a phone call. From the woman from Orange Jays, the hippy shop he had left his contact details at. The woman on the phone named herself as Jay and said that April was prepared to meet up with them. She implied that they already knew what Six was really after and Six guessed that April had put to use her long time learned Decking skills to have a poke around in Six’s past.
Without a better lead Six agreed to the meet and the three of them headed back to Birmingham (Alabama). The truck full of weapons was left in the care of Glyph and Sickle.
Jay, met with the runners and told them that they would have to ride in her jeep, so that she could protect April’s hiding place, and once en-route she case sleep on them. Waking some hours later, the runners were understandably annoyed at being magicked, but they found themselves at the side of a large lake surrounded by woodland. Jay, and a slight attractive woman in her forties stood talking by a Ford Americar.
Jay cam across and told the runners that she had studied their auras and had seen that they had been damaged somehow. That essence was leaking into the astral plane and that they should be experiencing vivid dreams and other connections to the spiritual world.
Then, April came across and told them that she wanted to warn them of the trouble that they were getting involved with. She used to be a runner and her old team had broken up after a run had gone sour. The team’s mage, a girl called Solace had been taken by a free sprit that they were trying to banish and the rest of the team took her loss badly.
Now it seemed that the spirit was back in the form of Solace, wanting to find all in that team who knew it’s real name, the only thing that had power over a spirit.
The runners listened and then got back to the job in hand. They had been paid to find 3 people. One was already dead. One was Snow, their contact. And one turned out to be a charming woman who just wanted to settle into a quiet life. The runners weren’t prepared to hand them over to their employer, but at the same time they were fully aware that they had jacked far too many runs lately and that another DNF would harm their reputations irreparably. The runners decided to make moves at handing over faked info. They would stage some kind of death of April and Snow, and although the details hadn’t been worked out yet they took a face mask of April to use on some other poor sap they would kill.
The runners got back into the Jeep with Jay, who began to drive them back to town.
TBC…
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Six's Blog.
By N.Barnes
Call Dir: Shadownet/ShadowlandsBBS/>
Select Region: Region=SanFrancisco>
Call SubDir: SanFrancisco/WeBlogs>
Select Blog: Author=V.Six>
Initializing…>
Entry 21: 17.07.70>
Man, my Swede is fragged. What a head-fuck! If you wanna follow what’s been going on in the World of Six, take your time and read slowly or you’ll never keep up…
Sickle joined us at the Safe House in Atlanta after we’d gotten Ash’s ride fixed up some. It wasn’t too long before Nunzio’s contact in Atlanta, Carlo, showed his face to sub-contract some work out to us. Seems the Shindig we spotted at the Triad club Province happened at the behest of someone called The Cowboy. IIRC, at the time we identified this fellah as an Atlanta mover and shaker called Johnny Kickback. The Cowboy was buying up the services of the West Coast crime syndicates and getting them to work for him. It was the first job he’d handed to the Mafia that was being subcontracted to us.
Carlo put 100k on the table and asked to find three Shadowrunners who were big time back in the ‘50’s – Shift, Kote and Binary Pulse. All that was needed to earn the dough was the current location of all three so we immediately put our contacts to work. I tapped up Snow and had another one of those damn Allisom visions in which Snow was shot dead in his living room so I advised him to get the hell out of dodge at the same time. Snow had heard the names and added a fourth who used to be part of the team – Solace.
Now it turned out that Solace had died, mid-mission, in the late-‘50’s and it was this which led to the break-up of the team. Kote had gone postal, possible because of Solace’s death, and had killed 13 people in a botched raid on Renraku, before killing himself. So far, so easy. Binary Pulse had kept on running solo into the ‘60’s before finally handing herself over to the heat to answer for her crimes. That meant Lone Star had assigned her a criminal SIN and that made things much easier because it allowed us to identify her as April Walker, owner of a Talismonger’s in Birmingham, Alabama called Walk the Path.
Daisy told us there was a heavily encrypted signal coming from the shop.
Binary Pulse had been a Decker so that made sense – Daisy said she could give us some kit that would help her do a data-steal and decryption if we could get access to the source of the signal. We cruised out to Birmingham, Alabama and found that Walk the Path had been abandoned for a month or more.
With little alternative but to take direct action, Sickle and Ash broke in while I provided cover and FRT. As the download started, the Daring Duo heard something downstairs so I sent the Fly-Spy in to investigate. There was some sort of fragged up Bot just standing at the bottom of the stairs (though Sickle later heard tell it was a spirit – which figures in a
Talismongers) but the Drek only seriously hit the fan when Ash started to break into the shop safe.
Suddenly the freaky Bot is on my boys and worse, a remote-rigged drone turret flips from the ceiling to start handing out tickets for the Chaingun Cha Cha. I blaze down a back alley, blow open a fire door and let rip with the vehicle weaponry while Ash and Sickle take down the Bot. In short order they complete the download and we blaze but once in the car Sickle reveals that April phoned her own shop after that little confrontation. I guess she was watching their tomfoolery through the building’s security system.
Apparently they had a nice long chat and agreed to meet – sounds like a recipe for disaster to me but with Daisy estimating that decryption will take days rather than hours, it’s at least a quicker way of earning our cash.
Continues: 1/2>
|| >
Personal misgivings aside, I wasn’t about to let Sickle hang his ass out to dry so as he took the meet play by play, Ash and I provided cover from a vantage point nearby – ready to leap to his defence. To all intents and purposes, Sickle and his date had a nice quiet breakfast together. They discussed her and her team’s history, the dangers of Shadowrunning and her (fairly justified) paranoia that someone was out to get her but she didn’t exactly spill the beans. With little to go on, we decided on the spur of the moment to follow her via a combination of remote vehicle ops and matrix nous.
The canny lass certainly gave us the run around heading north by train only to switch onto a southbound express train to Atlanta. Fortunately, with little else to do in Birmingham, Alabama, Ash and Sickle head headed for the safe house and were already ahead by some margin. As I pursued the train by car, Ash and Sickle took up point on the platform, watching and waiting for April to arrive. Shame she didn’t get off of the train. Our best laid plans had gone to rack and ruin but quick-thinking by Ash meant Daisy was already hacking the camera feeds from the train carriage…
April had locked herself in the bathroom en route to Atlanta and emerged dressed all in denim, complete with moustache. She looked depressingly like Johnny Kickback in her new outfit and had obviously walked right out past Ash and Sickle as they kept tabs on the platform.
Now this is where it all gets just a tad surreal. Either, April Walker is masquerading as Johnny Kickback or Johnny Kickback is masquerading as April Walker. Whichever it is, it doesn’t make much sense that April/Johnny is then bringing in hired help to try and find Binary Pulse – unless it’s some sort of test. Maybe April is pretending to be Johnny to throw the people she knows he is sending after her off of the scent. Alternatively, Johnny has been trying to find April, keeping her shop under surveillance and, not realising the Mafia had subcontracted the job to us, thought he should try to screw information out of us ASAP when he saw us busting in.
I have no idea.
All I do know right now is that we are missing several pieces from the jigsaw. And here’s another surprise: Daisy decoded a forwarding number for Shift from the encrypted files on April’s server. Shift’s number matches Snow’s. Sure, Snow has his fingers in many pies, but does that mean he used to be Shift or just that he’s acting as an agent and go-between for April’s team-mate? What a twisted web we weave…
We’re not sure we’ve done the job yet. Frankly, if finishing the job means handing over Snow’s address, I’m not sure we want to – and that’s without even considering my vision of Snow’s death. We’ll protect Snow – no doubt about that. It’s a matter of honour and professional courtesy – you don’t rat out your Chummers.
Which kinda means this job is another fragging bust. Another screw job.
Sure, we’ve got the money up front this time but unless we cough up the information in return, keeping it will mean dicking the Mafia and that gives you the life expectancy of a woodchuck on the freeway. To say nothing of the fact that my brother subcontracted this to us and blood is thicker than water.
We are so screwed.
Mood: FINE: Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional.
Ends: 2/2>
||
Call Dir: Shadownet/ShadowlandsBBS/>
Select Region: Region=SanFrancisco>
Call SubDir: SanFrancisco/WeBlogs>
Select Blog: Author=V.Six>
Initializing…>
Entry 21: 17.07.70>
Man, my Swede is fragged. What a head-fuck! If you wanna follow what’s been going on in the World of Six, take your time and read slowly or you’ll never keep up…
Sickle joined us at the Safe House in Atlanta after we’d gotten Ash’s ride fixed up some. It wasn’t too long before Nunzio’s contact in Atlanta, Carlo, showed his face to sub-contract some work out to us. Seems the Shindig we spotted at the Triad club Province happened at the behest of someone called The Cowboy. IIRC, at the time we identified this fellah as an Atlanta mover and shaker called Johnny Kickback. The Cowboy was buying up the services of the West Coast crime syndicates and getting them to work for him. It was the first job he’d handed to the Mafia that was being subcontracted to us.
Carlo put 100k on the table and asked to find three Shadowrunners who were big time back in the ‘50’s – Shift, Kote and Binary Pulse. All that was needed to earn the dough was the current location of all three so we immediately put our contacts to work. I tapped up Snow and had another one of those damn Allisom visions in which Snow was shot dead in his living room so I advised him to get the hell out of dodge at the same time. Snow had heard the names and added a fourth who used to be part of the team – Solace.
Now it turned out that Solace had died, mid-mission, in the late-‘50’s and it was this which led to the break-up of the team. Kote had gone postal, possible because of Solace’s death, and had killed 13 people in a botched raid on Renraku, before killing himself. So far, so easy. Binary Pulse had kept on running solo into the ‘60’s before finally handing herself over to the heat to answer for her crimes. That meant Lone Star had assigned her a criminal SIN and that made things much easier because it allowed us to identify her as April Walker, owner of a Talismonger’s in Birmingham, Alabama called Walk the Path.
Daisy told us there was a heavily encrypted signal coming from the shop.
Binary Pulse had been a Decker so that made sense – Daisy said she could give us some kit that would help her do a data-steal and decryption if we could get access to the source of the signal. We cruised out to Birmingham, Alabama and found that Walk the Path had been abandoned for a month or more.
With little alternative but to take direct action, Sickle and Ash broke in while I provided cover and FRT. As the download started, the Daring Duo heard something downstairs so I sent the Fly-Spy in to investigate. There was some sort of fragged up Bot just standing at the bottom of the stairs (though Sickle later heard tell it was a spirit – which figures in a
Talismongers) but the Drek only seriously hit the fan when Ash started to break into the shop safe.
Suddenly the freaky Bot is on my boys and worse, a remote-rigged drone turret flips from the ceiling to start handing out tickets for the Chaingun Cha Cha. I blaze down a back alley, blow open a fire door and let rip with the vehicle weaponry while Ash and Sickle take down the Bot. In short order they complete the download and we blaze but once in the car Sickle reveals that April phoned her own shop after that little confrontation. I guess she was watching their tomfoolery through the building’s security system.
Apparently they had a nice long chat and agreed to meet – sounds like a recipe for disaster to me but with Daisy estimating that decryption will take days rather than hours, it’s at least a quicker way of earning our cash.
Continues: 1/2>
|| >
Personal misgivings aside, I wasn’t about to let Sickle hang his ass out to dry so as he took the meet play by play, Ash and I provided cover from a vantage point nearby – ready to leap to his defence. To all intents and purposes, Sickle and his date had a nice quiet breakfast together. They discussed her and her team’s history, the dangers of Shadowrunning and her (fairly justified) paranoia that someone was out to get her but she didn’t exactly spill the beans. With little to go on, we decided on the spur of the moment to follow her via a combination of remote vehicle ops and matrix nous.
The canny lass certainly gave us the run around heading north by train only to switch onto a southbound express train to Atlanta. Fortunately, with little else to do in Birmingham, Alabama, Ash and Sickle head headed for the safe house and were already ahead by some margin. As I pursued the train by car, Ash and Sickle took up point on the platform, watching and waiting for April to arrive. Shame she didn’t get off of the train. Our best laid plans had gone to rack and ruin but quick-thinking by Ash meant Daisy was already hacking the camera feeds from the train carriage…
April had locked herself in the bathroom en route to Atlanta and emerged dressed all in denim, complete with moustache. She looked depressingly like Johnny Kickback in her new outfit and had obviously walked right out past Ash and Sickle as they kept tabs on the platform.
Now this is where it all gets just a tad surreal. Either, April Walker is masquerading as Johnny Kickback or Johnny Kickback is masquerading as April Walker. Whichever it is, it doesn’t make much sense that April/Johnny is then bringing in hired help to try and find Binary Pulse – unless it’s some sort of test. Maybe April is pretending to be Johnny to throw the people she knows he is sending after her off of the scent. Alternatively, Johnny has been trying to find April, keeping her shop under surveillance and, not realising the Mafia had subcontracted the job to us, thought he should try to screw information out of us ASAP when he saw us busting in.
I have no idea.
All I do know right now is that we are missing several pieces from the jigsaw. And here’s another surprise: Daisy decoded a forwarding number for Shift from the encrypted files on April’s server. Shift’s number matches Snow’s. Sure, Snow has his fingers in many pies, but does that mean he used to be Shift or just that he’s acting as an agent and go-between for April’s team-mate? What a twisted web we weave…
We’re not sure we’ve done the job yet. Frankly, if finishing the job means handing over Snow’s address, I’m not sure we want to – and that’s without even considering my vision of Snow’s death. We’ll protect Snow – no doubt about that. It’s a matter of honour and professional courtesy – you don’t rat out your Chummers.
Which kinda means this job is another fragging bust. Another screw job.
Sure, we’ve got the money up front this time but unless we cough up the information in return, keeping it will mean dicking the Mafia and that gives you the life expectancy of a woodchuck on the freeway. To say nothing of the fact that my brother subcontracted this to us and blood is thicker than water.
We are so screwed.
Mood: FINE: Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional.
Ends: 2/2>
||
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Search for runners past.
Sickle, Ash, Six.
Six and Glyph headed down to Nunzio’s safe house, Glyph stayed behind and watched the apartment while Six headed back to Albuquerque to see how Ash was getting on with the repairs to the pickup.
Repairs were completed as quoted and the pair of them headed back to Atlanta.
Nunzio phoned, he told the runners that he had been given a job that he wanted to pass onto the runners. Once they got back to the safe house Carlo would give them the details. The runners met back up with Glyph and not long after Carlo came with beer and a job for them.
Carlo explained that there was a meeting with some significant crime bosses that was held in San Fran a few weeks ago. A guy called the Cowboy assembled the Mafia, the Seven Stars Triad, and some Yardies from New Orleans (the Yaks were also invited to the meet but they declined to attend). and started waving the almighty nuyen around to get these crime syndicates to dance to his tune.
This meeting happened to be the same meeting that the runners had witnessed, and they quickly placed the name Jonny Kickback to the man called Cowboy.
Nunzio wasn’t happy with the deal but the Don wanted to stay in while the other syndicates were in to ensure they weren’t missing out on anything so Nunzio shook hands with the other crime bosses that night.
A couple of weeks passed before the Cowboy made his first request. Find three people. Shift, Kote, and Binary Pulse. Unimpressed with the task Nunzio passed the job onto his little brother, Six, who he knew was kicking his heels and better to keep the free flowing money in the family.
Sunday 16th July 2070
Six and Ash started to do the legwork, Ash called Daisy to see if she could get any info on these people, while Six put a call straight through to their fixer, Snow.
Six was hit with a vision of Snow stood in front of his field of vision, scrabbling for a gun. There was a whine and then a beam of energy punching a neat hole through Snow’s forehead. Snow stared for a moment with a stupefied expression, before collapsing like a broken doll.
Then Snow answered the phone. Caught off guard for a moment all Six could do is warn his friend to get out of town for a while and to trust him. Snow was confused but agreed. Then Six asked about the three names. Snow knew who they were. Runners back in the 50’s, there was a fourth runner called Solace, but they had long since retired.
Six let Ash know what he had gleaned, who then refined the search parameters with Daisy. The decker then came up with some more snippets of information. Kote, had killed himself 13/03/58. Went on a killing spree in Renraku before blowing a new hole in his own head. Shift and Solace went under the radar at about the same time. Binary Pulse was a decker who continued to run until 2065, when she turned herself in to Lone Star for the crimes she had committed. She then seemed to have gone straight, ditching the name Binary Pulse in favour of her real name, April Walker she had opening up a Talismonger shop in Birmingham (Alabama)
Keen to follow up leads quickly Ash and Six headed there.
Sickle received a phone call message from Six warning of possible issues in San Fran, and when Sickle finally picked up the message he called Six, who advised him of the situation. Sickle decided to join the other runners out in the CAS.
Checking out the talismongery called Walk the Path, the runners found that it was locked up. And had clearly been closed for a time. They asked around and Six found a women’s boutique where the store owner claimed to know April. Six left a spurious calling card for April to call him and then headed back to the shop.
Checking over the shop they decided that there was little of value inside except a Fairlight super computer that was broadcasting a heavily encrypted signal to somewhere. This piqued their interest enough for them to have another look.
Daisy advised Ash that she could download the information from the computer but they would need to go inside and tap into the cabling itself. She sent Ash a plug and play transmitter that they could use for this task.
Sickle and the transmitter arrived the following morning. After a long brief the trio headed back to the mall for about 10pm to start their B&E.
Six sat outside not far away in the car, Ash and Sickle went in. Getting inside was easy, getting to the computer was easy, selecting the cable and starting the download of the data was easy. Sickle and Ash detected a faint odour of heating surface oil, and then Sickle saw movement down the stairs.
Sickle called Six and asked him take his drone to go and see what was moving around. Six duly did and saw an eight foot tall machine with weaponry for hands. Six reported in. Sickle and Ash got worried but it seemed to be waiting for them down stairs.
The pair waited quietly while Daisy raped the hard drive of information. Then a large safe in the opposite room finally broke Ash, who whipped out his acetaline torch and began to cut the doors off.
The machine/creature pounded up the stairs as soon as it heard the torch flick into life, and the pair of them readied themselves for a fight. Six sped to the scene also.
They fought for not much more than a minute before a rail gun appeared in a track along the ceiling and opened up on the machine as well. The concentration of fire killed it and it detonated with force to knock over the runners.
In the aftermath Sickle heard a phone ringing. He headed to answer while Ash raided the safe, which housed all manner of magical goods.
The call was from someone claiming to be Binary Pulse. Sickle sort of explained who they were and eventually agreed to meet up with her. Ash filled his pockets with semi-precious stones, and gold powder.
The runners headed back to their hotel in Birmingham. They argued for a while over the benefit of meeting up with Binary Pulse but Sickle stuck to his guns, and duly did the following morning.
Monday 17th July 2070
Binary Pulse was into her forties now, but she still had a subtle attractiveness, Sickle met with her over a coffee while Ash and Six observed from another table. She asked a lot of questions and Sickle answered vaguely, she then left with a warning that shadowrunning was a dangerous business.
Six tailed her with a drone, while Ash hassled Daisy for the information from the computer. Daisy said that she had only decrypted 10% of the mass of files held on the computer, but she did have a forwarding number for Shift. Ash recognised the number instantly as one he recognised. It was Snow’s.
Six phoned Snow but there was no answer. They assume that Snow took Six’s advice and had left town.
Meanwhile Binary Pulse had headed to the train station. Headed out of town before doing a switch back to head back to Atlanta. The runners blazed to catch up arriving in the train station with 10 minutes to spare. Ash and Sickle then watched and failed to spot Binary Pulse leave the train.
The headed onto he train and began searching the cabins and toilets as the train began to move off, on a one stop run to the east coast. Ash asked Daisy if she could check the video feeds for the cabin that Binary Pulse had sat in, sure enough she sat down. Only to get up when the train moved off. She headed into a toilet, and a few minutes later stepped out of the toilet as the Cowboy and settle back down for the rest of the ride to Atlanta.
It was too late now, Ash and Sickle were en route to Charleston on the coast. Six was in his car speeding into Atlanta, and Binary Pulse, or the Cowboy, or whoever had slipped past them.
TBC…
Six and Glyph headed down to Nunzio’s safe house, Glyph stayed behind and watched the apartment while Six headed back to Albuquerque to see how Ash was getting on with the repairs to the pickup.
Repairs were completed as quoted and the pair of them headed back to Atlanta.
Nunzio phoned, he told the runners that he had been given a job that he wanted to pass onto the runners. Once they got back to the safe house Carlo would give them the details. The runners met back up with Glyph and not long after Carlo came with beer and a job for them.
Carlo explained that there was a meeting with some significant crime bosses that was held in San Fran a few weeks ago. A guy called the Cowboy assembled the Mafia, the Seven Stars Triad, and some Yardies from New Orleans (the Yaks were also invited to the meet but they declined to attend). and started waving the almighty nuyen around to get these crime syndicates to dance to his tune.
This meeting happened to be the same meeting that the runners had witnessed, and they quickly placed the name Jonny Kickback to the man called Cowboy.
Nunzio wasn’t happy with the deal but the Don wanted to stay in while the other syndicates were in to ensure they weren’t missing out on anything so Nunzio shook hands with the other crime bosses that night.
A couple of weeks passed before the Cowboy made his first request. Find three people. Shift, Kote, and Binary Pulse. Unimpressed with the task Nunzio passed the job onto his little brother, Six, who he knew was kicking his heels and better to keep the free flowing money in the family.
Sunday 16th July 2070
Six and Ash started to do the legwork, Ash called Daisy to see if she could get any info on these people, while Six put a call straight through to their fixer, Snow.
Six was hit with a vision of Snow stood in front of his field of vision, scrabbling for a gun. There was a whine and then a beam of energy punching a neat hole through Snow’s forehead. Snow stared for a moment with a stupefied expression, before collapsing like a broken doll.
Then Snow answered the phone. Caught off guard for a moment all Six could do is warn his friend to get out of town for a while and to trust him. Snow was confused but agreed. Then Six asked about the three names. Snow knew who they were. Runners back in the 50’s, there was a fourth runner called Solace, but they had long since retired.
Six let Ash know what he had gleaned, who then refined the search parameters with Daisy. The decker then came up with some more snippets of information. Kote, had killed himself 13/03/58. Went on a killing spree in Renraku before blowing a new hole in his own head. Shift and Solace went under the radar at about the same time. Binary Pulse was a decker who continued to run until 2065, when she turned herself in to Lone Star for the crimes she had committed. She then seemed to have gone straight, ditching the name Binary Pulse in favour of her real name, April Walker she had opening up a Talismonger shop in Birmingham (Alabama)
Keen to follow up leads quickly Ash and Six headed there.
Sickle received a phone call message from Six warning of possible issues in San Fran, and when Sickle finally picked up the message he called Six, who advised him of the situation. Sickle decided to join the other runners out in the CAS.
Checking out the talismongery called Walk the Path, the runners found that it was locked up. And had clearly been closed for a time. They asked around and Six found a women’s boutique where the store owner claimed to know April. Six left a spurious calling card for April to call him and then headed back to the shop.
Checking over the shop they decided that there was little of value inside except a Fairlight super computer that was broadcasting a heavily encrypted signal to somewhere. This piqued their interest enough for them to have another look.
Daisy advised Ash that she could download the information from the computer but they would need to go inside and tap into the cabling itself. She sent Ash a plug and play transmitter that they could use for this task.
Sickle and the transmitter arrived the following morning. After a long brief the trio headed back to the mall for about 10pm to start their B&E.
Six sat outside not far away in the car, Ash and Sickle went in. Getting inside was easy, getting to the computer was easy, selecting the cable and starting the download of the data was easy. Sickle and Ash detected a faint odour of heating surface oil, and then Sickle saw movement down the stairs.
Sickle called Six and asked him take his drone to go and see what was moving around. Six duly did and saw an eight foot tall machine with weaponry for hands. Six reported in. Sickle and Ash got worried but it seemed to be waiting for them down stairs.
The pair waited quietly while Daisy raped the hard drive of information. Then a large safe in the opposite room finally broke Ash, who whipped out his acetaline torch and began to cut the doors off.
The machine/creature pounded up the stairs as soon as it heard the torch flick into life, and the pair of them readied themselves for a fight. Six sped to the scene also.
They fought for not much more than a minute before a rail gun appeared in a track along the ceiling and opened up on the machine as well. The concentration of fire killed it and it detonated with force to knock over the runners.
In the aftermath Sickle heard a phone ringing. He headed to answer while Ash raided the safe, which housed all manner of magical goods.
The call was from someone claiming to be Binary Pulse. Sickle sort of explained who they were and eventually agreed to meet up with her. Ash filled his pockets with semi-precious stones, and gold powder.
The runners headed back to their hotel in Birmingham. They argued for a while over the benefit of meeting up with Binary Pulse but Sickle stuck to his guns, and duly did the following morning.
Monday 17th July 2070
Binary Pulse was into her forties now, but she still had a subtle attractiveness, Sickle met with her over a coffee while Ash and Six observed from another table. She asked a lot of questions and Sickle answered vaguely, she then left with a warning that shadowrunning was a dangerous business.
Six tailed her with a drone, while Ash hassled Daisy for the information from the computer. Daisy said that she had only decrypted 10% of the mass of files held on the computer, but she did have a forwarding number for Shift. Ash recognised the number instantly as one he recognised. It was Snow’s.
Six phoned Snow but there was no answer. They assume that Snow took Six’s advice and had left town.
Meanwhile Binary Pulse had headed to the train station. Headed out of town before doing a switch back to head back to Atlanta. The runners blazed to catch up arriving in the train station with 10 minutes to spare. Ash and Sickle then watched and failed to spot Binary Pulse leave the train.
The headed onto he train and began searching the cabins and toilets as the train began to move off, on a one stop run to the east coast. Ash asked Daisy if she could check the video feeds for the cabin that Binary Pulse had sat in, sure enough she sat down. Only to get up when the train moved off. She headed into a toilet, and a few minutes later stepped out of the toilet as the Cowboy and settle back down for the rest of the ride to Atlanta.
It was too late now, Ash and Sickle were en route to Charleston on the coast. Six was in his car speeding into Atlanta, and Binary Pulse, or the Cowboy, or whoever had slipped past them.
TBC…
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
