Triads

Wednesday 21st June 2070

Six, Ash, Drifter, Glyph.

The runners were at Glyphs pad considering doing the run that Ash had bought, and were set to snatch the statue from the Californian Free States Museum when Kitty phoned Six.
She had a problem, and needed the runners to gather at an address in Diamond Heights.

The team kitted up and flashed round to the apartment block. The front room was in darkness as they flanked the building, Ash was first through the door with the others close behind. Hearing a noise through a far door Ash charged in raising his gun to eye level. Kitty turned on the lights, shocked at having a gun in her face, she kicked the surprise party off with a deflated yell of surprise. Someone blew a party horn.

Partly to celebrate getting out of jail, more to celebrate Six’s and Ash’s birthdays Kitty, Daisy and Snow threw together a bit of a party. Snow dished out some fake ID’s as birthday presents and gave the runners a little lecture in covert ops. Snow had to talk shop as well. He had been in contact with Captain Duncan Croner, who had the job that was to clear Vincent Cazznotti’s SIN record.

Meeting up with Croner, the runners were told that one of his undercover agents hadn’t reported in for two weeks and Croner needed to send in some non-badge help to find out if he was still operational or had been compromised.

The officer was known as Han Tze, and had been sent into the Severn Stars Triad gang to locate the leader Kung Lok. His cover story was good enough to keep him alive and undercover for almost 9 months. He had even been given his own patch to sell narcotics through a few foot soldiers, and he often reported to the Paper Dragon restaurant

Croner also informed the runners that there were three bounties available for members of the Sever Stars, and if the runners saw an opportunity to bring them in it might be worth their while. The bounties were for.
Deputy Master Zhang Jie, one of three deputy masters within the Seven Stars Triad organization. He was thought to co-ordinate the drug trafficking activities of the Severn Stars.
Fu Hong, a lieutenant for the Severn Stars, he was wanted in connection for the firebombing of the Topaz Lantern, and was also thought to be coordinating some kind of slave trade.
And Ruan Shu, a young member of the Severn Stars. The younger brother of Ruan Li, the master of Wo Feng Wo, another Triad organization operating in San Francisco.

The runners took all the info down, and headed round to Han Tze’s apartment, situated in Chinatown. Six questioned some local gangers about purchasing drugs and they pointed him toward a Triad run strip club called Province. Meanwhile Ash and Glyph broke into Han Tze’s apartment. They found little of interest except a micro camera that had been installed by Han Tze to record the visitors who came to his door. Viewing the footage they saw that Han Tze was met by Fu Hong on the day he disappeared two weeks ago.

The runners made their way down to the Paper Dragon restaurant and as they approached they saw that Fu Hong was speaking with CTN (California Trideo News). They had a table booked for a meal so the runners went in, and they heard the interview was about the free meals that the Paper Dragon was giving away to the homeless after they closed business every evening.

The runners took in a meal, and Ash asked some questions of Fu Hong about Han Tze, but didn’t get any kind of answer and just roused Fu Hong’s suspicions. While the runners were having their meal at the Paper Dragon, Han Tze’s Comlink was turned on. The runners assumed trap and didn’t go and investigate. Instead they went round to Province.

Province. Part strip club, part drug den and overseen by Zhang Jie. The runners went in and began checking out the activities. Everyone but Ash Saw that Zhang Jie looked down on the whole operation from the second floor level, guarded by many Triad heavies. Ash got himself a lap dancer.

The runners decided to go and find this Comlink that was out in the barrens. They tooled up and headed out. They found the building quickly and cautiously they made their way up to the top floor. The Comlink was being used by two scrawny street kids. The runners took the comlink and discovered that they had found it at an area that is used as a bit of a tip. They headed over and after picking through the detritus, found half a dozen bags with torn clothes in. Glyph found the clothers that Han Tze had been wearing. Cut with a blade, and with bloody hand prints on the runners began to fear the worst.

It was late and the runners weren’t getting anywhere, so they headed home for the night with plans for the morning.

Thursday 22 June 2070

The runners got up early. Ash took the comlink round to Daisy to see if she could find any info stored in the memory. Six and Drifter headed round the locan shelters, clinic and morgues to see if Han Tze had turned up at any of those locations.

The morgues and shelters did not yield any fresh clues, but a visit to a Street Doc in Chinatown did make the runners wonder how far and wide the Triads influence went. They also began to wonder if his cyberware was being sold second hand.

Daisy came up trumps after she had shaken the hangover from the party the night before. She found The last footage from Han Tze’s cybereyes. He was taken to the back of a Paper Dragon delivery van, as a live body in a body bag was dumped in. As he questioned what was going on Fu Hong told him that they had found him out, before he was punched out.

The runners decided to tail these delivery vans and placed a stealth tag onto one of them. The delivery vans spent the day working. Delivering take-out across San Francisco, and then at about midnight the vans loaded up with lots of meals for the homeless and set off about the city. The runners tailed one of these vans and didn’t notice anything suspicious until they got to the barrens and the vans were as good as empty. At a run down house the driver loaded something heavy into the back. He stopped at one other location and again loaded something heavy into the back of the van.

The runners then tailed this van as it headed back into San Fran toward the industrial district. The van pulled into a heavily gated abattoir and rendering plant. Six and Drifter watched as two people were hauled out of the back of the van and were taken inside kicking and screaming.

The runners had seen enough. They knew where two out of the three bounty targets were, they had a good idea that the answers as to the whereabouts of Han Tze would be inside the rendering plant, and there were about ready to kick off.

TBC...