The Zoo

Six, Ash, Sickle.

The runners settled into a bit of downtime, Six started working on Ash’s car, while Ash started to try and learn some more physi-adept, Ki-Rin headed off to Long Island on the lash with the lads from his old squad.

Six entered into a street race with a couple of other racers, Bum-fluff and Smog. The young racer, Bum-fluff, blew his engine, trying too hard. The experienced campaigner, Smog, was more of a match for Six, and Six nearly lost the race to the troll, but managed to get him on the last corner.

Drinks were on Six that night.

8th July 2070.

Ash received a phone call from a Mr. Johnson; he had an accent that Ash couldn’t quite place. The job seemed simple enough. The customer wanted the runners to get hold of a mating pair of Thunderbirds back from San Fran Zoo. The customer was prepared to pay 20k.

Ash took the job.

Six and Sickle were drafted in to help. And as Ash told them the job over coffees, the pair were filled with disbelief. Six had a quick look on the matrix and called up the datafile on Thunderbirds. 3m wingspan, lightning bolt shooting critters.

They decided that they needed to go and see these birds for real and drafted in Kitty and Daisy to join them for an afternoon at the zoo.

Walking around, half enjoying the zoo, half taking in security and other pertinent info the runners spent an afternoon looking. The Critters had been taken ill and were being held in the onsite vetrenary surgery. The runners decided to make a move that night.

Concern that these critters could project lightning they invested in the latest urban cammo electrically insulated body armour. And balaclavas. Sickle got onto his hacker contact with the absence of Ki-Rin and arranged for the doors to be opened and the cameras to be turned off, and then the runners made a move.

Deciding to drive around the back of the zoo, and get access to the vet’s area without having to access the rest of the zoo. Making their way round they discovered the slumped and unconscious form of one of the tubby zoo guards.

Making their way in further to the compound, it was clear that they were not the first to break into the zoo this night.

The runners quickly searched the vet’s area, and there was no sign of the Thunderbirds, they then headed down toward the display cage where the thunderbirds would usually be kept in the zoo, they found that the bird thieves had been here too.

The reflection of blue lights flickered off nearby trees. The fraggers had called Lone Star as they were leaving the zoo with the Thunderbirds.

The runners headed back the way they had come but the cops had blocked that exit. Six remembered that he had seen some redundant gates, and running the 4x4 truck on the electric motor they made their way to that gate. After ensuring the coast was clear the runners escaped through the surrounding forest.

These bird snatches that beat the runners to the punch used bog basic methods of evading the cameras, spray paint, which meant that they wouldn’t have been able to cover their tracks once they got out onto the open road. Sickle called his contact that soon found the vehicle and was able to follow it to the apartment building in San Francisco. The runners moved out and tracked down the pickup.

Carefully checking over the pickup, the runners found the ID card of a student, and Sickles contact gave the runners the address for the Pickup owners apartment.

The runners hot footed it up the stairs and booted in the door to the apartment. The runners found the birds in a cage, looking very ill with some young eco warriors who tried to free them desperate to revive the ailing critters.

The runners gave them a life lecture and took the birds. Ash got in contact with their Mr. Johnson from the Tir Tangire, and arranged for the birds to be picked up. Although the birds were very ill, they survived with the aid of Six’s medibot and the runners handed over the birds to the Mr. J who collected them.
20k was earned and the runners went home relatively happy.