Thursday, March 08, 2007

The Eleven Nameless Men

Six, Ki-Rin, Glyph.

The runners spent some quality down, getting a chance to catch up and spend some cash that they had earned over the last few months worth of shadowrunning.

Six started work on a van conversion to turn it into a drone dispensing command vehicle. Having had a very near death experience twice, Ki-Rin decided to invest in some bone lacing, and Glyph worked on the design and build of a pair of snap-on gyromounts after she had some cybereye upgrades.

Monday 18th September 2070

Six got a call from a man called Donovan. Six and the team had been recommended to him by Duncan Croner, the Lone Star chief and he had a job that needed immediate attention. The meet was at the Jetty Point Café, a little continental style café nestled amongst some shops on the westward facing coast.
Six conference called every member of his nefarious friends, and all but Ki-Rin and Glyph were unavailable. He told them where to meet and set off there himself.

Donovan was sat outside at one of the tables and invited the runners to sit. He laid the job on the table; he was representing a group of people called The Eleven Nameless Men, a semi secret society who advised corporations and governments on the ebb and flow of the stock markets. Their predictions could be seen as self fulfilling prophecies and at a word they could make one corporation happy and at the same time, make an enemy of another. They knew this, they were comfortable with this, and they took physical and magical security precautions to protect themselves.
It seemed that The Eleven Nameless had triggered some kind of vendetta from some organization and an assassin had already killed two of their number. The Eleven needed to find out who this killers employer was so that they could negotiate an amicable solution.

The conversation wafted across Ki-Rin, but he was distracted by someone sat a few tables away. The elf was paying a bit too much attention to their conversation. Maybe because they were talking about contract killers, maybe something else. He pointed it out to the other two and then while Donovan talked about the ins and outs of the run Ki-Rin tried to find this man on the Matrix.

A facial scan and a few clever search programs later, Ki-Rin found him. A guy called Louis Veron. A Republic of France national, who served in the BFST, the French special forces. Not only that but he was part of the magical strike division. He was discharged after failing a psychological exam. He failed to re-submit his SIN number after the crash
and then his records run dry. Ki-Rin shared this info, and although now suspicious all they had was a nosey Frenchman.

Donovan finished the meeting by telling the runners that Duncan Croner would allow them to look through the evidence that Lone Star had gathered so far, and then headed away. The team slowly split as well. Ki-Rin made arrangements for the Elf to be followed using the street surveillance cameras while Six wired one of his Vans to a spot not far away so that he could switch into an un-spotted vehicle, Glyph was detailed to go and view the evidence that Lone Star had.

Ki-Rin got into Six’s spare car while Six sat in the van, both ready to tail their mark who was presently ordering another coffee.

Glyph headed down to Lone Star and was shown into Croners office. As she was about to ask to view the files he gestured to the files on his desk, and went off to get them a coffee. Glyph didn’t need telling twice and took the hint.
The files related to the two murders. Both shot with a single bullet, and the evidence bags with the bullets was what caught Glyphs eye. They were an odd bore and they appeared to be an orachalchum full metal jacket. Moreover, they had been etched on the side with the victim’s name. This was bespoke ammunition and an small engraved ‘A’ hinted at the manufacturer. Glyph was done and she left thanking Duncan Croner.

Ki-Rin and Six tailed the Frenchman and watched as he got onto a tram. Six was remote driving his Dodge with Ki-Rin as passenger while he drove the Transit.

Glyph contacted them and let them know the info about the bullets. Ki-Rin quickly found the manufacturer on the matrix. A Dwarven weaponsmith based out in the Tir Tangire. He hand made bespoke arms and ammunition. Ki-Rin contacted him but didn’t know how to take that line of enquiry forwards, so dropped it.

Six was getting twitchy. His gut feeling said that this Elf that they were following was related to this investigation and let Ki-Rin know that they were going to make a move before the tram drove into the station. He waited for the tram to make its next stop and then parked the Dodge in front of the tram. Ki-Rin got out and got on board ignoring the tram drivers complaints about the car he drew his pistol and started firing stick-shock rounds at the elf. Six drew up along side the tram and shot the driver dead while in the back Ki-Rin first wrestled with their elf, and then with a have-a-go-hero. Six then had to deal with Lone Star who were closing on the alarm that the driver had triggered One flash bang through the windshield of the cop car, knocked the driver out, and the patrol car careened at speed toward the tram full of screaming civilians. Six dumped a frag grenade in front of the front axle of the car. His timing was perfect and the car was flipped away and past the tram. Six and Ki-Rin sped away from the scene with the now unconscious French Elf.

After an hour or so of running avoidance from the Lone Star patrols that hit the street, the runners met up at an abandoned end of the East coast docks. They brought the elf round and began to interrogate him. Ki-Rin played the good cop, Glyph played the sadistic cop and they got nothing. They cut him, they threatened him, they asked civilised non consequential questions and they were only told that his name was Tristan, that he was an author and that he was in San Fran researching a book. The only thing is that he was as cold as ice. Nothing more than a slight grimace when Glyph cut him nothing but casual flippant answers to any questions. His comlink was clean too, this man was either so good at the stealth assassin persona, or they had got the wrong man.

Ki-Rin went back to basics and let the matrix do the work His hacking was good. Hundreds of French nationals had come into San Francisco over the last few months, but one called Tristan Veron stood out as too much of a coincidence. He then followed the camera feeds from the airport and saw their man arriving from France three weeks ago. He got into a taxi and headed away. Ki-Rin then followed the taxi trial through town to a block of flats near the San Francisco barrens. He got footage of Tristan coming and going from that residence for a few weeks and was sure that they would find what they wanted their. Their best lead yet, the runners headed off that way.

Six had a feeling that Tristan would be one of those slippery types, and was not keen for a French stealth assassin escaping on them, so even though he was unconscious and bound, they gaffer taped his head up, tied his hands and feet to the inside of the van, smashed his left knee to beyond repair and then left him locked in the back. Six still wasn’t happy about leaving him here but agreed to go inside the flat to help track down his flat.

They knocked on doors and asked questions. On the 5th floor Six met a bear of a man who took an instant dislike to him. Six’s usual charisma when meeting people let him down and when asking if he had seen a French friend of his the guy kind of assumed that Six was one of those, you know, reverse parkers, and wasn’t having any garlic flavoured baguette chomping going in this apartment block. He went off to get his shotgun.

Ki-Rin and Glyph saw the guy come out and stick shocked him. Six then went into his apartment and liberated his beers for the trouble.
The gunfire did however cow the locals and no-one was keen to open a door for the runners after that. Ki-Rin lost his rag a little bit and booted down a door. No one had answered the door, and the reason for this was that the owner was bound in the back of their van.

The team had found his base of operations. They found a box full of these special bullets, minus two. They found a pen sized etcher and some photos of the Eleven Nameless Men. Their was evidence of some kind of ritual magic, and they found the rifle. The Mercedes Benz of custom made firearms. The team also found another comlink; this one was running French language software. Ki-Rin hacked it and found this hitmans contact list. His most recent employer, Index-Axa, a French finance company whose stock collapse a month or so ago has all but ensured their takeover by a rival firm. This was good enough for the runners who contacted Donovan to tell him the run was done.

The runners dealt with the hitman in the obvious way, broken neck and ditched somewhere in the barrens, before they headed off to meet up with Donovan. They managed to squeeze an extra 5k each out of the deal by offering up the sniper rifle and the bullets with an explanation as to how the hitman had bypassed their magical defences. The runners headed home 6 hours after starting out, 45k richer.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Six’s usual charisma when meeting people let him down and when asking if he had seen a French friend of his the guy kind of assumed that Six was one of those, you know, reverse parkers, and wasn’t having any garlic flavoured baguette chomping going in this apartment block."

Fantastic description :)

Anonymous said...

45k Bugger!

Owain said...

Thanks mate. I had to make something of your bad dice roll ;)

Psst. Ash, I have only started creating the run for next week so don't tell them, but so far there is a hint that the team will get their hands on 1 million.

Anonymous said...

We're in the money, la la la laah!! What a shame Ash isn't here. Lol

Anonymous said...

Ah well im best mates with a dragon, and im going to get him to eat you!:]

Anonymous said...

At least you finally admit it...

Owain said...

Best mates? go on, phone him.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, best mates we go down the pub every friday and share storries on alisom

Anonymous said...

You mean you talk about your other friend behind his back? For shame!!

Besides a Dragon wouldn't eat me, i'm all skin and bone.

Owain said...

Or as the dragon likes to call you, parchment and pen.

Anonymous said...

And Titanium...

Faulty though? How funny would that be!?

"Eeeermm Mal, did you install joints in my elbows and knees, cos i can't move 'em?"

Mal: "Ooooops..."

Anonymous said...

Ha ha, did mal botch that would be funny, obviously not for you! :]