Spray, Pray, and Co-Pay

Spray, Pray, and Co-Pay
Part of Compound Interest
Date 2085-02-17 GM jit Location Seattle, Redmond (Avondale) Status Threat Level: High
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven	Red Ledger
Crunch Neznayka Red Ribbon Sibyl	Repo Peter "Mephisto" Essex Red Ledger Rigger Red Ledger Goons
Casualties and losses
Neznayka has been taken captive by Red Ledger.	N/A

Summary

In which Neznayka's insurance policy does not cover her while she is out of network.

Background

"We're bettin' it all on Red, baby!"

Red Ledger has had a blistering hot streak these last few weeks. Minus the mysterious disappearance of two adepts, it seems like everything's been coming up red.

Capitalizing on the weakened Red Hot Nukes, who have suffered the wrath of the Crimson Crush after Shakedown Breakdown, Red Ledger has expanded their borders and foisted the Red Hot Nukes out of their turf in Avondale, though not without the typical gang war casualties. Fortunately, the Avondale Community Clinic is always there to provide for the downtrodden citizens of the Redmond Barrens, whensoever tragedy may strike.

Red Ledger, however, have very different ideas of community outreach compared to the Red Hot Nukes. Repo, fresh off their gang war victory, establishes a new contract with the community clinic, with a restructured price plan to boot. What was originally cheap healthcare in lieu of DocWagon becomes extortion. Repo, intending to negotiate down, asks the patients and their families collectively for 25,000 nuyen in medical expenses, both to cover their medical bills and in order to cover the casualties Red Ledger sustained by 'liberating' them.

Tensions rise over the next day or two, until conflict breaks out in the form of an angry mob attempting to storm the clinic to retrieve their loved ones. Driven back by gangers spraying full auto, they have no choice but to plead with Fate, who, perhaps hearing their cries, spreads the whispers of their pleas to the shadows.

The Meet

The runners are reached out to separately.

Red Ribbon lies low in her apartment with an even lower reputation hanging like an albatross around her neck. Alessa reaches out to her - unusual, given the dearth of available job offers lately typical of someone with regrets like hers. Nonetheless, if anyone's got her back, it's the owner of The Daze, who has seen her remorse and the consequences of her mistakes first hand.

Alessa tells Red Ribbon that redemption begins with action, and that if she wants to regain the trust of the people of Redmond, a golden opportunity has presented itself at the Avondale Community Clinic. After a riot this morning, a gang seems to be holding people hostage, though the source of the dispute is hazy. Ribbon very quickly searches her memory for the gang borders of the area, and despite identifying that Red Ledger could very well be responsible, chooses to act regardless. She sets out in a rush, leaving several drones in states of half-repair.

Sibyl performs her morning routine when she's contacted by Harry Metzger, Seattle Knight Errant Chief of the Division of Investigation. Turns out a call has been made to Knight Errant regarding the situation as well, even if officers on hand opted not to bother. If the clinic is claiming non-payment, then it seems more like a civil matter, doesn't it?

Harry is a man of some principle, however, and casually brushing a hostage situation to the side bothers him. Reaching his own tendrils into the shadows, he surreptitiously asks Sibyl to investigate the scene on his behalf, unofficially. She gladly agrees to help.

During a day out, Crunch is contacted by Trousse, who happens to himself have been contacted surreptitiously by a member of the clinic staff. He informs her that this reputable clinic, (reputable as far as the Barrens go anyway), is in the middle of a hostage crisis, with injuries on the rise and the promise of fatalities by sunset if they're not paid. Crunch is, unfortunately, Trousse's best shot at addressing the issue, and being a good natured soul, Crunch agrees to a little bit of hooding to fill her afternoon.

Neznayka, meanwhile, lurks nearby - as she watches Crunch finish her call and pack her things, she herself receives a message, not from a fixer, but from Saint. She says her own fixer has alerted her to a situation that could very likely involve Red Ledger, but that she herself is occupied with another lead. Neznayka, the only person she trusts with such things, is her only port of call to investigate, and God help her, the poor woman agrees.

The four of them arrive at the scene in progress, an unsettled crowd of two or three dozen Redmond residents, and armed guards at the door of a barbed wire clinic built from the skeleton of a fifth world school house.

The Plan

Red Ribbon and Neznayka arrive one after another, and though both choose to mingle amongst the crowd for additional information, Red Ribbon opts to do so while jumped into a Fly-Spy and hidden away. Eavesdropping, they learn that the mood is generally tense - the scars of the altercation from earlier in the morning remain, and the crowd has thinned to those dozen or so loved ones of those still trapped in the clinic. Discussions don't reveal much, save that Neznayka's face reads with a hopeful murmur among the crowd's as some kind of mercenary that's come to help. Someone's connections have paid off.

Sibyl, however, done up nicely in a button-up suit, skips the crowd and immediately approaches the front doors of the clinic, where two guards trade incredulous glances at one another before settling their eyes directly on her. They tell her it's closed for today, and that whatever 'incident' she might be investigating is better researched elsewhere. Crunch, arriving as well, swiftly follows up behind Sibyl, and instead insists that she had an appointment lined up for today. Again, the Red Ledger goons roll their eyes and tell her that all appointments are cancelled for the day. Come back tomorrow. Or never. They don't care. Crunch insists however - if she could just confirm with her doctor, you know? And with a hefty sigh, one goon seems to ping someone over the Matrix and call her out.

Stephany Ortiz, resident in-clinic, emerges and informs Crunch that all appointments for the day are cancelled, just as they said. She's Matrix online, however, and this doesn't escape Crunch. She pings her commcode and asks if she's being made to say that - and she confirms the situation. Several days ago, a firefight broke out between gangs in this section of Avondale, part of increasing violence in the recent weeks as turf borders become hotly contested. There were casualties on all sides, but the winners appeared to be the gang occupying the clinic right now, Red Ledger, who swiftly took over the operation to tend to their wounded, as well as whoever else might be leftover after pulling them in off the street. Although the clinic is typically merciful about such things, Red Ledger's offered "protection" has also led them to "suggest" an increase in cost to those using clinic resources - a transparent attempt to recoup losses. With tensions rising, this morning, a small organized mob stormed the parking lot and attempted to overrun the clinic's defenses - a mob that quickly dissipated with full-auto spray-and-pray tactics employed by the gangers at the front door. Repeated calls to Knight Errant regarding the situation, both before and after escalation, have largely gone unanswered, apparently. The doctor in charge appears to be going along with this plan for now, a passive maneuver that Stephany cannot let her conscience abide.

Crunch reassures her that there are trained professionals on hand, and that she will help defuse the hostage situation with as few casualties as possible.

While Crunch is discussing matters with the clinic staff, Sibyl returns to the crowd along with Ribbon and Nez, who all pull one of the men aside. They ask if he's in charge, as he seems to have been the one talking people up and organizing payment, and he answers that he supposes he is, as much as anyone here is. They discuss matters at a cafe a block or so away from prying eyes, and though his mood is frenetic and tired somehow at once, the idea that honest-to-God hooding shadowrunners lifts his spirits. He asks them when they can have the four hostages out - and Red Ribbon and Sibyl tell him that they do not know.

Meanwhile, on the Matrix, Red Ribbon spots something a little unusual. A pair of headphones appears to be running silent. She blinks, rubs her eyes, and looks again, but she hasn't been deceived - someone is either very security conscious with their devices, or a hacker hasn't thought through the implications of simultaneously running silent and using a Wrapper.

She has her anthrodrone look around on the meat, and with precision eyes, spots out the likely culprit - an insect sits idly in a darkened corner of the window outside, suspiciously still, and a the exact shape of a handy little device Ribbon happens to know very well - a Fly-Spy. Red Ledger has followed them here. With a quick hack on the fly, she is able to sleaze a mark onto the device and the rigger's RCC as well - with a quick snoop on their traffic, she also happens to catch a short glimpse of every camera in and out of the building, mapping out the interior. Unfortunately, no hostages appear to be visible.

Swapping to DNI, Ribbon tells the crew that she is going to sneak out the back of the storefront and away to the East side of the building, putting several brick walls between her and any nosy members of Red Ledger who might be interested in knowing what she's up to.

Neznayka, follows Ribbon there for her own reasons. She demands to know Red Ribbon's intentions, and her loyalties, and the truth of the night six years ago when she watched a homeless shelter burn. Secretly, she scans her for weakness, and for information to leak to Saint. Subterfuge aside, Red Ribbon answers honestly: she was a kid, and that was the price for her comfort. She didn't want to regret it, but she did. And she struggles every day to avoid being the kind of person who would do it again. Nez, reluctantly, seems satisfied with that.

Personal grievances largely sorted, they move on to scouting. Sibyl peers at the astral and finds a watcher spirit scanning the perimeter, with a fire spirit on standby. She approaches the spirit for a friendly chat, and it thankfully appears as uninterested in being there as the hostages themselves are. It relays its orders when asked - when the watcher spirit reports intruders on the physical, the fire spirit is to manifest and make them stop by whatever means. Sibyl thanks it for its candidness and honesty, and the fire spirit bids her farewell.

Red Ribbon flies over the space with her own Fly-Spy, and finds the space awkward to infiltrate without being seen. A chainlink fence with barbed wire curled on top surrounds the perimeter, and the windows appear to only lock and unlock from the inside. On the rooftop, she finds a small access point for a broken ventilation system - it's too small for any reasonably sized metahuman to fit into, but Woland the Wonder Raccoon and a highly flexible dwarf adept could potentially squeeze inside.

With the timer ticking down, the team rush to formulate a plan. Neznayka and Crunch will go in the front and pose as negotiators the people have brought in. With a last ditch effort, they will try to confirm the hostages' current safety and convince Repo to come to some kind of peaceful conclusion - and when that seems likely to fail, they will use that inlet as a distraction while the others sneak in and organize a proper extraction. Sibyl will provide astral overwatch and geek the watcher spirit before it can alert the fire spirit - even if the fire spirit sees, it was very up front in the specific wording of its order, and its lack of true commitment to the task. Crunch will leave as if to discuss details with their "clients," only to slip away, get onto the roof Ribbon had scouted earlier, and slip into the broken ventilation system along with Woland. The two of them will find their way to the hostages, unlock the window from the inside, and let Red Ribbon slip within to free the rest.

Easy, ne?

The Run

Neznayka and Crunch enter the clinic with big words and big ideas. Posing as negotiators, they demand an audience with Repo, and convince one of the gangers to retrieve him. The man himself is a massive, cybered up troll with a battle axe and a bone to pick. He folds his arms stubbornly at the two of them.

See, unfortunately, he explains, the time for business has passed. Negotiations are a simple thing - you start high, and you talk down. You don't, he again emphasizes, form an angry mob to charge into the clinic. He would've been happy to negotiate that 25,000 down to something more affordable, but the reality is that they've forfeit their right to bargain. 25,000, in full, by sunset, or he'll "repossess the services rendered for nonpayment."

The doctor in charge, an older dwarf woman staring out from the reception desk, asks Neznayka not to upset them. It isn't just the situation right now they have to consider, but the future of the clinic as well, and their relationship with an uncontested gang now occupying the area. Surmising that they'll try to extract their value from them from somewhere, she is afraid to jeopardize the clinic's entire operation for the sake of what might be good and moral in the moment. It is an agonizing compromise that Neznayka is loathe to help them make.

Crunch insists on seeing the patients alive before she can negotiate pay, and Repo, exasperated, agrees to have someone show her around. Four rooms are marked for the four separate hostages, each of them watched over by a ganger with an AK. She maps the locations, and accepts those circumstances for the time being.

Seeing that Red Ledger is being obstinately uncooperative, Crunch begins to enact their back-up plan, and excuses herself to "talk with our clients" while Neznayka feigns making calls to arrange for wire transfers. Repo is reluctant, but allows her to leave on the condition that she remove her trodes while she is gone. No sneaky business. Not surreptitious communication. They've already spotted some suspicious characters in the area, and he doesn't see them right in front of him. He's reluctant to give them the room to scheme. That said, unfortunately, before she does take them off, Neznayka insists on Crunch taking some rats with her as well. They're good rats. Well trained. Excellent.

Sibyl hears, confirms, and projects into the astral. She sneaks by the watcher and delivers a devastating attack that destroys it in one-hit. The fire spirit watches, fully aware of her actions, but utterly unbothered. It nods toward her, and she nods back.

On the topic of espionage however, unfortunately, Crunch spots something as she leaves - the rigger's fly-spy, following along on the wall of the building, keeping a close eye on her as she leaves. She feigns a legitimate excursion on the fly, making her way toward the cafe from earlier, with Red Ribbon and Sibyl's directions, and as she enters (leaving the fly-spy once again trapped outside), she slips into the back, as if using the restroom, and finally surreptitiously out the back of the cafe. Using the external cameras' blind spots, she cuts through the chainlink fence and makes a best-effort to climb the wall, with Woland's help of course.

The two of them secure and on the roof, they sneak into the vents and begin to crawl as softly as possible. Red Ribbon brings her anthrodrone along the perimeter of the building, in the blind spots of the cameras, and waits patiently outside with a dart-gun drawn, ready to dispatch the watchman. Crunch helps a rat slip through unseen, which crawls into the pant-leg of the ganger. This distracts him well enough for Crunch, lithe and double-jointed, to worm her arm through and unscrew the vent from the opposite side. Woland slips through after, and with his crafty little hands, unlocks the door, all while the ganger is shouting something about a rat in his pants with absolutely no eyes on the vent. The window opens, Ribbon fires, and with their entry secured, hostage one is safe.

Her job complete, and her absence becoming conspicuous as Neznayka continues to weave lies to pacify Repo, Crunch leaps out the window and books it back to the cafe, utilizing those same blind spots from before. Red Ribbon and Woland are entrusted with the operation from here.

Inside the rest of the building in this renovated elementary school, the rigger's doberman patrols the hallways in a simple loop, apparently not being actively monitored at the moment. Red Ribbon desperately does not want to be seen by the gang of people who most definitely want her dead, and so gets in touch with both WRN3 and Skinshedder to edit the drone's camera footage in real time to delete her. A jellyfish and a small dragon answer the call, ride on top of the doberman's icon, and at least one of them asks Ribbon to tell Bunny Hop he did a good job.

The drone secured, Woland emerges from the door of the classroom and slips around the tight little space of its blind spot. He shoves a looper into the wires, loops some innocuous footage, and allows Red Ribbon to step into the hall. One-by-one, as the doberman strolls away with its back turned, she swiftly moves room-to-room and dispatches the gangers with carefully coordinated strikes - all the way until number four. Although she opens the door carefully as usual, Repo turns at the wrong time. She is perfectly within line of sight - and he blinks, bewildered, and grins.

"Red fucking Ribbon, is that you? I can't believe we missed one after all this time."

Red Ledger knows of her from her her previous gangmates. Even if it's only her anthrodrone, she's been made.

Her drone screams for the hostages to rush toward the window and escape while she downs the final ledger guard. The rigger, fully alert, shakes off the marks WRN3 and Skinshedder had left and screeches back down the hall with its mounted gun on full-auto - Red Ribbon ducks behind the door for cover, and watches the cheap wood be shredded against the APDS rounds. Repo yanks the Enfield shotgun from the holster at his hip and starts down the hall - only to be called back by Neznayka.

"Do you want your money, Repo? I am worth all of it and more."

He's intrigued, obviously. While the rigger maneuvers and fires and Red Ribbon is forced to beat a hasty retreat with the hostages out the window, Repo hears out Neznayka's offer. 30,000 nuyen, and a bounty from the White Vory to take her alive sound much, much more enticing than shaking down a Barrens clinic, even if it is their turf. He agrees to the terms, and calls off his men. Those that were knocked out - well, they're literally in a clinic, they'll be fine. The remainder take Neznayka to a back office, bind her hands and ankles, and gag her mouth.

Before they strip her DNI, Ribbon makes one final plea. Beyond frustrated, she asks Neznayka why she's doing this - and in addition to placating Red Ledger in order to protect the clinic staff in the future, she quietly admits that she sees this as a form of penance. Red Ribbon is not the only one with regrets and past sin, and is not the only one who wants to make it right. She gives Red Ribbon a message to deliver to Saint - and goes dark.

Aftermath

Ribbon screams in frustration as she drives the hostages away in her bulldog. The fly-spy following her is mercilessly shot out of the air. She does as she's asked, delivering a message to Saint from Neznayka that reads as such:

"Hello. I may have done something overly reckless. They will likely be taking me to the docks or a ship. I ask that you please work with Red Ribbon, I think she is the best chance that I live. Goodbye, моя дорогая. If this is the last time we speak ... " It's a simsense file of her blowing Saint a kiss.

Saint mourns with the only emotion she properly knows: rage. She screams at Ribbon and calls her a fuck-up, though ultimately rushes to Neznayka's rescue with [[Red Ribbon] in tow. The two of them proceed to the run: Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let Down Your Bear.

Crunch escapes without attention, along with Woland and the rest of the critters. She delivers them safely to Neznayka's Snohomish homestead.

Sibyl makes it back home, and reports a somewhat successful hostage negotiation back to Harry Metzger.

(This run immediately precedes Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let Down Your Bear).

Game Quotes

Amusing quote from game.

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Sibyl: "I feel like I've been in a bad trideo. Four random strangers stumble into a hostage situation and save the day. It has everything. A contortionist gnome with a trained racoon and a squad of rats in the ducts. An anthrodrone in gang colors. An animal trainer mystery woman with a fake face. And of course, a clueless seer sent on a wild goose chase following red herrings down a rabbit-hole of mixed metaphors. That sonofabitch Metzger has got some 'splaining to do. The good samaritans come up with a plan worthy of a bad action trid. Damn thing works too ... right to the last minute or so. Turns out the psychopath ganger and the ganger moll rigger have a history. Turns out the mystery lady with the expensive perfume has a bounty ... from her father? Oh yeah, mystery lady and ganger moll also have a history. Tha action trid turns out to be a mystery instead. I do know one thing though, I hate fragging mysteries. I'll get to the bottom of this one way or another. I'll need some frankincense, some myrrh, and some ganja. We'll see what Oracle has to say tonight.

Neznayka: An audio link begins with the background sounds of an engine that is endemic to audio recorded inside a moving truck. The connection is awful, riddled with static. When the dryad speaks, it is at a whisper

"I am ... I worry. I heard them bragging about this to someone. That cannot be good, if it is known the White Vory are in Seattle, even just for a pickup ... it could become very ugly. тупица Незнайка. Slow and stupid. If you were faster on your feet you could have grabbed the medical staff and ran and if you were quicker with your words you could have talked them down. At least ... only I am going to suffer because of this. I wonder if this makes up for those years ... for the bomb. I think I would rather bite my tongue out and choke on the blood than go back."

The truck goes over a bump, apparently causing Neznayka to fall to the floor with a thud. She curses in Russian and a voice from the front yells back to her. 'You alright back there?' His voice seems less concerned by her wellbeing and more concerned with how much less the bounty might cash for.

"чудо́вище!" She yells back, before continuing at a whisper. "The thing is ... now that I am here and I am pondering biting my own tongue and dying choking, I realize that I very badly do not want to die. There are so many things I would miss."

"моя дорогая, you would not leave me as well, would you?"

The static spikes and the message cuts off.