Lost Media, Found Footage

Lost Media, Found Footage
Date 2085-03-17 GM jit Location Seattle (Snohomish, Redmond, Bellevue, Downtown) Status Threat Level: High
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven Anhe	Horizon	Knight Errant
Daisy Mittens Funk Gigabite Oberon	Anthony Elma	KE Investigative Decker KE Investigative Rigger KE Investigative Mage
Casualties and losses
Knight Errant Awareness	Lots of Nuyen, Exclusive Ownership of a Pre-Crash Procedural Drama	Watcher Spirit

Summary

Piracy isn't theft, except for maybe this time.

Background

In 2064, a 5-out-of-10 police procedural drama following a newborn AI and the murder of a dozen AI researchers releases on Horizon trid streams to middling praise. Despite average performance, or perhaps because of it, AI Buster, as the series was called, would go on to have a second season greenlit and scheduled for release later that year, on midnight, November 2, 2064. This would turn out to be the least important event that happened that day.

Twenty years later, the second season is considered lost media, and single-minded media machine Anhe, unimpressed though she is with the series and its outdated ideas of artificial intelligence, is compelled to obsess over every scrap of narrative data she can gather.

As it turns out, however, the second season of AI Buster had a very limited physical release as well - one-hundred physical copies released as a special edition bundle of seasons 1 and 2 together. Though all now in the hands of private collectors and weirdos who obsess over physical media in the age of digital supremacy, not one has ever been uploaded to the Matrix, presumably to maintain its exclusivity.

And even more fortuitous, one of them, for the first time in a long time, is apparently going on sale.

The Meet

The runners - Daisy Mittens, Gigabite, and Oberon - all meet on the Matrix within the abandoned host of a used car dealership, where only one of them is comfortable. Gigabite holds herself together long enough for an agent, or an interactive element of the sculpting, or perhaps a secret AI gentleman to appear before them. He welcomes them, asks them about their car's extended warranty, and sheers apart and flits away like the outgoing click of an old CRT. Rearranged now, in his place, the plain looking portrait of a disheveled young woman sits, stiff and smiling.

She thanks the runners for coming and offers some simsense coffee in a styrofoam cup - "I know you people like that sort of thing," - but otherwise gets down to brass tacks. Anthony Elma, Horizon upper-middle-manager, divorcee, and notable collector of physical media, is selling his copy of AI Buster on chip. She goes on a tangent regarding the series' quality and lack thereof until brought back to the focus of their meeting.

Get the chip, she asks, and digitize it. Do what they want with the plastic and silicon afterward, it doesn't matter. Maybe a bonus if they get that to her actually, she thinks offhandedly - she might know someone who cares about that sort of thing.

The sale is supposed to happen at a physical media swap meet happening at the Seattle Convention Center in downtown that weekend. The runners have only twenty-four hours before it begins.

Good luck, ne?

The Legwork

Gigs is happy to go offline at the first available opportunity while Daisy and Oberon travel up to Snohomish to meet her at the Ghoul Liberation Express, a comically large and kitted out Dodge General Command that she has parked in the Seattle farmland disguised loosely as stray farm equipment. The runners enjoy relative solitude as they heave themselves into the passenger bay. Daisy Mittens, expert rigger, idly talks shop with Gigabite about her ride and the special equipment that may be needed to digitize something pre-Crash before she and Oberon's agent get to work.

A few hours at the Digital Exposition Factory (and the surprise subcontract of a Matrix expert, Funk), yield promising results. Anthony Elma is corpo rich, divorced, and mad about it. He and his wife, Elizabeth Elma, parted on uneven and ungracious terms - he still resides in Bellevue, right in the heart of a gated community privately contracted with Eagle Security. Some quick examination shows a physical infiltration will be difficult - astral watchers, security cameras slaved to industrial hosts, and an attentive matrix presence all abound.

The team turn to social engineering as a possible avenue out - digging into the topic of his wife reveals her social media presence. She does not list her physical location, but some detective legwork on the pictures she posts to her feed show that they are of wildflowers blooming in the Bellevue area. Irrelevant, says Gigabite, who leaps into a divorced woman's DMs with decided resolve. Using a professional's flair, she secures a date with this divorcee slated for this evening, with the intent to ply her for any information that may help.

A plan of action in mind, the team start the engine and roll into Redmond to approach the border wall with Bellevue. They're going to source their next intel straight from the tap.

The Riskier Legwork

Funk, intensely trusting to fall unconscious with a ghoul and a vampire present, dives into hotsim and orchestrates a sleaze-driven jaunt into the gated suburb, keeping a careful eye out for Horizon themed icons and personae. He does find one, and traces its icon to the address of Anthony Elma - score, he imagines. Looking closely, he discerns that it's a highly rated commlink at Rating Five, runs a data processing boosting program, and last sent an email twenty minutes ago. He slips behind the persona, and with a wave of his conductor's baton, instructs a sentient musical note to slip into his pocket and retrieve those emails.

This, unfortunately, fails. Anthony Elma's stiff persona, suddenly alerted to the presence of a hacker, comes alive as he repossesses his Matrix body, and yells at the would-be hacker. He calls the police, which routes through to security, and Funk understands he has scant moments to slip away with the information he wants - after another attempt, he finds it, and with a flourished arpeggio, flits away offline. Though the neighborhood deckers are now on alert for annoying script kids in the area, the docket of emails is far more valuable.

Somewhat unfortunately, Anthony Elma is not so incompetent that he takes his work life home and keeps it online. This is a commlink dedicated entirely to his personal business - no bonus paydata this time, chummers. They do, however, strike gold.

He last sent an email confirming his attendance at a VIP auction scheduled to coincide with the swap meet, to be held in the lowest layer of Dante's Inferno. The check-in to verify an item's authenticity is scheduled for tonight, and further examination reveals a reservation for this weekend, starting this evening, at a nearby downtown hotel. The runners need to strike quickly if they're going to strike before his arrival - if the security here is bad, the security at Dante's has to be much worse.

While this is happening, Gigabite enjoys an evening out with an increasingly-charmed Elizabeth Elma, who embarrassedly admits that she hasn't been on a date in a long while, not since her divorce. Gigabite takes her out to a nice restaurant and a club, and as the evening waxes and wanes into early morning, she lets slip a slew of information regarding her husband, largely in the form of heated complaints. This is typically not information that they haven't already uncovered, but an offhanded mention of how he loved being in his basement more than he loved being with her gives the team, already attentively listening in as Funk toils on the Matrix, an eager clue. His home collection must be there.

Gigs, obviously enjoying herself, has the best job in the world, and continues partying and drinking while the rest of the team coordinate their next move.

Daisy Mittens cracks her knuckles. Her time has come.

The Infiltration

Daisy, untroubled by the Redmond noise, sends her Fly-Spy on a recon mission into the home of Anthony Elma by way of his HVAC system. She thoroughly explores through the home's vents, dodging cameras, and mapping the space. She finds Anthony upstairs in his bedroom, apparently preparing to go out for the evening, and a cleaning crew entering the building through the back, apparently legitimate. They are otherwise alone, and she is thankful for the mercy.

On the Matrix, however, security deckers wander the area due to reports of a hacker. Though they're nonplussed and suspect neighborhood kids messing around, Daisy takes no chances - she runs silently, and Wrappers her icon to appear as a remote access lock. Perfect disguise!

Only that she wasn't there a few moments ago, and security deckers are actively looking. By the time she's explored down to the basement level, the faceless persona of a security guard flits into being before her.

"Okay kid, pack it up."

Daisy remains silent, as she is a lock.

"Kid, I can see plain as day you're running a Wrapper."

Daisy, again, remains silent, as she is definitely a lock. The door to the basement is unlatching, unlocking, and down the stairs of this former wine celler retrofitted into a climate controlled archive is Anthony Elma, freshly showered and barely clothed, who is retrieving from his many glass cases a data chip, mint in a box labelled AI Buster: The Complete Series. A little longer, she thinks, before confirming the exact description of the bag he places it into, down to the exact pouch. As he leaves the basement, the security decker sighs.

"Look, kid, I'm being nice. Last warning. Log off. Throw away the sleaze dongle. I'm gonna trace your icon on the count of three, and then you'll be Knight Errant's problem, alright? Don't throw your life away for some mischief."

Daisy, now that she has exactly the information she'd like to have, thinks that sounds like a fine deal. She parks her Fly-Spy somewhere secure for later retrieval, and logs off.

Though the plan had been to give Oberon access to his manor, the sight of Anthony Elma loading into his supercar and gunning it onto the highway comes with a sweet consolation prize. They've still got plenty of time.

The Heist

Oberon loads into Daisy's Dustoff MedEvac Drone, and the two of them disappear into the drone cloud above, closely tailing Anthony Elma down the I-5 as he makes his way toward Downtown Seattle by way of Daisy Mittens' expert piloting. Eventually, past the SIN scanners, the drone descends and Oberon falls delicately onto the roof of their target's vehicle. Cloaked, silent, and wasting no time, he coordinates with their hacker Funk to spam Elma's AR feed with pop-ups - advertisements for sketchy gambling hosts and masculine aids flood his vision, and the entire while, Oberon beelines for the bag, slips the datachip out of the designated pocket with ease, and slides back out the window.

When he checks his bag later, a single origami crane rests in its place.

Game Quotes

Amusing quote from game.