Unshielded

Unshielded
Date 2081-03-22 GM Teksura Location Lotus CyberSurgery
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven Moth Squid Sparrow	Lotus CyberSurgery MCT

Summary

A father has gotten word that his ex-wife is seeking a Cranial Shield treatment for their son, who has just emerged as a technomancer. The father, secretly a technomancer himself, is horrified, and although he lost custody of their child in the divorce, he feels he must ensure the rescue of his son. He seeks help from the shadows, to bring him his son so that he may train him to control and use his gift, rather than be tormented and scared of it.

Background

The son (Ryan Perry) spends most of his time with his mother (Sharon Perry) who has primary custody. She is an independently wealthy woman, a trust fund child of Horizon executives, who is paranoid of identity theft. Her home is in a very secure AAA neighborhood in Tacoma.

The Cranial Shield surgery has already been scheduled. It will be taking place at Lotus CyberSurgery in a AA zone of downtown Seattle in three days.

The father (Gilbert Perry) has made arrangements with a society of technomancers to hide and care for his son, if he can be rescued before the surgery.

And the clinic was funded by MCT - the legitimate business arm of the yakuza.

The Meet

The Johnson (Gilbert Perry) arranged for the runners to meet him at Runner Bar 16, which is a bar for rich posers who like to pretend to be runners.

He explained the situation and what he needed.

Fellow technomancer Sparrow was horrified. That kind of surgery was an abomination to them. They agreed to do the job for free. The Johnson offered 8,000 nuyen each to the others. He also provided detailed information about his wife's location, patterns, and appearance. And the name of the clinic where the surgery was scheduled.

Once the boy was secured, he was to be brought to a meet-up point with the father in Everett.

The Plan

The runners considered several possible options. The son could be taken from the mother's home. Or, something could be arranged at the surgical clinic.

They drove by the clinic first. It was in a less secure location (AA vs. AAA). The mother and child would be logically separated. There were options to potentially take the boy from a pre-op room while he waited, unattended. It would require quite the infiltration.

Sparrow was able to get into the clinic's security and obtain some critical pieces of information, including a list of staff, the schedules for the day of the surgery, which staff were scheduled to work that day, etc. Likewise, Sparrow reserved a room to a fake patient name for the morning prior to the scheduled surgery time, so we could have a place to conduct some shenanigans unobserved.

Squid could see the clinic was closer to the meet-up point - again an easier neighborhood to drive out of with a kidnapped child - and studied the routes and all the needed information about how to travel through gang territories on the road without incident.

Moth began to prepare a disguise. All the staff were human and Japanese. Luckily, Moth had the linguasoft for Japanese, and was a trained medic. The runners identified an intern who was not scheduled to work that day. Sparrow pulled a deep dive on everything about this intern - the perfect dossier to pass for her. Sparrow programmed one of Moth's synthskin masks to the intern's features, and coached her further, from Sparrow's professional work as a doctor in a clinic. Moth had a smart wig, contacts, everything needed. The disguise was very good.

Sparrow secured 4 doses of narcojet.

Squid made sure he had a duffel bag big enough for an unconscious ten year old boy, such that he could carry him on his back on his rigger bike. His bike was entirely off the grid. So if the kid woke up, he couldn't mess with it.

The Run

Moth arrived, as the intern, and was able to walk right in and secure the equipment needed inside. She scouted the back door for exiting to the parking lot where the bike would be waiting, secured a gurney in the shenanigans room, and got line of sight on where the boy would be taken for pre-op.

Sparrow hacked the cameras so they could not save their recordings. Sparrow hacked the doors and added an easy code 1-2-3-4-5, so Moth could walk right through the secured back door.

Several challenges presented.

The mother came back to the pre-op room with the boy, and thought she could stay with him. Moth had to con her that it was time for her to return to the waiting room due to protocol around reducing risk of infection. The woman was very skilled socially, but Moth managed it. She convinced the boy to come with her to the shenanigans room, and that she needed to give him a shot to help with his headache. He was afraid of needles though. He tried to be brave, but screamed as kids do. This brought another staff person running who addressed 'the intern' with some suspicion. Moth managed to convince her that she was the intern, that she belonged there, and everything was fine with the unconscious boy on the gurney. That was quite the con. No time to waste! She hurried the gurney out the back door and handed off the unconscious boy to Squid.

Squid carried the boy on his back, on his bike. He followed a defensive route, making absolutely sure he wasn't followed. He stopped just shy of the meet-up location, and took the boy out of the duffel bag, and held him a bit more tenderly for delivery to his father. He took care of the drop-off.

Aftermath

It was a very clean job. The mother and the surgical staff realized something was wrong soon enough, but by then the runners were long gone.

Suspicion for the kidnapping fell on the intern, but she had an alibi, so while she lost some work time while the matter was investigated, her reputation was not ruined and she didn't have to take the fall.

The father took the boy to the Technomancer organization PromiseLAN, where he was hidden and safe and able to learn to use his powers.

His mom was probably really broken-hearted.

Rewards

• ¥8,000
• 5 Karma
• 2 CDP

• Sparrow refused payment, and instead collected an additional 4 karma.

Game Quotes

"Tek, I can put a small child in a duffle bag, right?" - Squid